As I write this, the news is being reported that Pope Francis has appointed 12 new cardinals, two of which are known to be homosexualists. The destructive tendencies of the papacy grieve my heart to the core, but we know the Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end. It is hard as layperson to watch the destruction unfold before our eyes, knowing that there is literally nothing we can do, but wait for either the chastisement or for God to pull the rabbit out of His hat. The most disheartening portion is as the saying goes, "as the church goes, so goes the world." With pagan pantheism running amok within the Church, there is no hope for humanity at large. It's as if the Church laid aside her weapons and we just watch the torrent of the City of Man destroy soul after soul, devouring in unstoppable pride. The only bulwark, Catholicism, is wounded and infirm, and sick unto death.
So what can we do? Follow Mary's instructions at Fatima. Pray the DAILY rosary, fast in reparation to the Immaculate Heart, wear the brown scapular and do the 5 first Saturday devotion. Saving the Church is beyond human power at this time. The true church is remnant now, and this boomer generation will bleed it out of money and people. Sadly, it seems there will be blood, and we need to sit back and watch. Woe to my children due to the failures of our leaders.
Beyond prayers, we need to educate our own children in the philosophical principles of St. Thomas Aquinas so as to withstand the onslaught of secular relativism. Oh the sorrows of our children who accept fleeting ephemeral relativism. The base paganism of modernity, our death.
We must also "know our enemy," which is untruth in all of it's subtlety. Reginald Gerrigou-Legrange mapped out the new theology well in his "Where is the New Theology Leading Us?"(see my previous post on the subject). The new theology is a subtle change in the understanding of truth. Instead of making the mind commensurate with reality, we are now told we must make the mind commensurate with the vicissitudes of life. This is merely nominalism under another theological name. Basically, our concepts are not ontologically "rooted" but shift with changes in experience. In other words, there is no truth as there is no permanency to our concepts, but they shift with time.
Recently listening to Catholic Radio, Drew Mariani had a guest on his show stating that the Catholic position on the death penalty had changed and that anyone who disagreed with that was not Catholic in good standing. Putting aside the prudential reasoning on the death penalty, this calls into serious question the idea of doctrine/dogmatic teaching. The death penalty has been considered legitimate by the Church since biblical times (Christ crucified, Paul mentions it in Romans), and has been supported by capital T tradition up until the current pontificate. Indeed, John Paul II was personally opposed to it, but he did not make the doctrinal statement that it was illicit, only that prudentially it was no longer necessary. This is a prudential understanding of the principle, but he did not contradicting the principle.
264 popes out of 266 affirmed it, Paul, Augustine, Aquinas, and others have confirmed its legitimacy. Yet, we are told by a modern theologian that the teaching had changed because we now have a better understanding of the effects of the death penalty, that they did not have in biblical times or all of tradition up until this year. And here is the threat modernism poses on full display. What this theologian was asserting is that Catholics who support 2000 years of tradition are wrong because a pope made a change to the catechism contradicting ALL of his predecessors. This contradiction is okay because we moderns now have a better understanding and more means to incarcerate people without killing them. Do you see how the standard/concept shifted with life? The philosophers of action have become the theologians of change. This theologian, very sweet to the palate in presentation, brought the sickening death of Catholicism on a delectable plate of false "charity." You see, this is a textbook case of the new theology or the commensuration of the mind with changes of life. The concept of "death penalty" is not a fixed concept, but shifts with ways of understanding the concept. It was sneaky relativism, whispering silently, presenting itself as truth.
This will not stand, and this is what we must keep our eyes out for. Anywhere definitions change, or understanding shifts to change or contradict a fixed concept, we are faced with modernism. Hegel has infected the church, we must all break out the magnifying glasses, or at minimum squint, to find Satan in our midst.
Monday, September 2, 2019
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Fornication - The forgotten mortal sin
As a 39 year old male raised in the age of the pill, where detachment of sex from procreation was the cultural norm, I have realized over the course of time the great and mortal lie this is. Sister Lucy of Fatima, the famed seer, once wrote that the final battle between good and evil would be about the family. John Paul II, in his Memory and Identity describes how the new ideologies of evil were seeking to destroy the foundation of the social unit - the family. While Nazi socialism and Communist socialism overtook common institutions, the new evil would attack marriage and the family. Of course, Marx disliked the bourgeois family (read Christian family), his Leninist followers went after middle and federal institutions. Their satanic ideology wouldn't stop there, however. It was not enough for the devil to attempt to remake society from the top down, he must try to remake it from the bottom up. Satanism (and Leftism) are at war with nature - "ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil' - or rather, remaking reality after our own desires. This attack on the family is the battering ram that will make our children martyrs.
Our Lady once told a seer that more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than for any other. She also told the Fatima seers, frighteningly, that souls were falling into hell like snowflakes (a truly horrifying image.) Pope Paul VI noted in Humanae Vitae that with the pill the road to perdition would be wide and lead many to adultery and fornication. Welcome to 2019.
Since sex before marriage is now the norm because we've divorced sex and procreation, or sex from its reason for being/final cause, I thought it pertinent to review what the Angelic Doctor had to say on fornication (see II-IIae Q.154 a.2). After surveying the animal kingdom in a reductionist sort of way, Aquinas comes to the conclusion that fornication is evil because it is a sin against the offspring. He identifies that human offspring require a male presence to realize their potential citizenship and for the common good. In short, children need fathers in their lives, and fornication essentially takes his commitment out of the picture. We've seen an even worse horror in our epoch, with the murder of MILLIONs of children for the sake of fornication. Aquinas calls fornication a crime against life. One can easily see in reading this the connection John Paul II made between contraception and abortion (Evangelium Vitae). He called them fruits of the same rotten tree. Of course, abortion proponents and even some Protestant pro lifers advocate the pill to prevent abortion. The social science tells a different story as abortion increases wherever the pill is used. It shouldn't be surprising that Planned Parenthood would promote the pill, since it provides food for their god Moloch. We can see in Aquinas' principled reasoning here, that fornication leads to fatherlessness, which is a crime against life. It's no wonder contraception always leads to abortion.
It is important to see how Aquinas' critique of fornication ties directly into two precepts of the natural law (precepts being commands dictated by our very natures). Two of those precepts are the "procreation and education of children" and to "seek the common good." Fornication is a threat to both of these precepts.
We need to transvalue all values once again, as the existentialist/nominalist/philosophy-theology of change have undermined the very ontology of what it means to be human. Satan has inverted nature and reinvented it to be as God. Our culture instantiates in men that to be "manly" is to put notches in the belt, when that is precisely the opposite of manly. It is cowardice and weakness. Manliness is standing with and for the women we have relations with. The coward kills his offspring and is no man at all. The coward walks away from difficulty and lays down at the feet of effeminate pleasures. The coward seeks the playboy life as he has no strength over his own internal desires. He is weak, and worse, a slave.
As Catholics, the first clarion call we must make is to re-instantiate the final cause of sexuality, procreation. Our children must know that sex is for preservation of the species, not just for fun. Our children need to know that they are committing crimes against life if they are having sex before marriage.
I realize the modern will read this and scoff at the prudishness of such a post. As someone who is devastated by the continual murder of children in the womb, we must find the source. I am also a red blooded male and understand the natural urges, but I have come to understand the telos of such urges. I have also found happiness and satisfaction in marriage. Our young men and women need to know that natural happiness is attainable through obeying the natural law. Caring for our children is part of that law and as Aquinas shows, fornication is a detriment to human life. Aquinas had principled philosophy, we have experience. The silent holocaust is all we need witness to discover the truth of his words.
Break out the smelling salts modernity.
Our Lady once told a seer that more souls go to hell for sins of the flesh than for any other. She also told the Fatima seers, frighteningly, that souls were falling into hell like snowflakes (a truly horrifying image.) Pope Paul VI noted in Humanae Vitae that with the pill the road to perdition would be wide and lead many to adultery and fornication. Welcome to 2019.
Since sex before marriage is now the norm because we've divorced sex and procreation, or sex from its reason for being/final cause, I thought it pertinent to review what the Angelic Doctor had to say on fornication (see II-IIae Q.154 a.2). After surveying the animal kingdom in a reductionist sort of way, Aquinas comes to the conclusion that fornication is evil because it is a sin against the offspring. He identifies that human offspring require a male presence to realize their potential citizenship and for the common good. In short, children need fathers in their lives, and fornication essentially takes his commitment out of the picture. We've seen an even worse horror in our epoch, with the murder of MILLIONs of children for the sake of fornication. Aquinas calls fornication a crime against life. One can easily see in reading this the connection John Paul II made between contraception and abortion (Evangelium Vitae). He called them fruits of the same rotten tree. Of course, abortion proponents and even some Protestant pro lifers advocate the pill to prevent abortion. The social science tells a different story as abortion increases wherever the pill is used. It shouldn't be surprising that Planned Parenthood would promote the pill, since it provides food for their god Moloch. We can see in Aquinas' principled reasoning here, that fornication leads to fatherlessness, which is a crime against life. It's no wonder contraception always leads to abortion.
It is important to see how Aquinas' critique of fornication ties directly into two precepts of the natural law (precepts being commands dictated by our very natures). Two of those precepts are the "procreation and education of children" and to "seek the common good." Fornication is a threat to both of these precepts.
We need to transvalue all values once again, as the existentialist/nominalist/philosophy-theology of change have undermined the very ontology of what it means to be human. Satan has inverted nature and reinvented it to be as God. Our culture instantiates in men that to be "manly" is to put notches in the belt, when that is precisely the opposite of manly. It is cowardice and weakness. Manliness is standing with and for the women we have relations with. The coward kills his offspring and is no man at all. The coward walks away from difficulty and lays down at the feet of effeminate pleasures. The coward seeks the playboy life as he has no strength over his own internal desires. He is weak, and worse, a slave.
As Catholics, the first clarion call we must make is to re-instantiate the final cause of sexuality, procreation. Our children must know that sex is for preservation of the species, not just for fun. Our children need to know that they are committing crimes against life if they are having sex before marriage.
I realize the modern will read this and scoff at the prudishness of such a post. As someone who is devastated by the continual murder of children in the womb, we must find the source. I am also a red blooded male and understand the natural urges, but I have come to understand the telos of such urges. I have also found happiness and satisfaction in marriage. Our young men and women need to know that natural happiness is attainable through obeying the natural law. Caring for our children is part of that law and as Aquinas shows, fornication is a detriment to human life. Aquinas had principled philosophy, we have experience. The silent holocaust is all we need witness to discover the truth of his words.
Break out the smelling salts modernity.
Sunday, July 28, 2019
Where is the New Theolgoy Leading Us?
The late, great Thomist Garrigou-Legrange wrote a rather damaging philosophical piece "Where is the New Theology Leading Us?" in 1946. A Thomistic metaphysician of skill, he identified truth in the new systematic theology as adequatio realis mentis et vitae, (adequation of the real mind and life) instead of the classical definition as adequatio rei et intellectus (adequation of the mind and intellect.)
I had never heard of, nor read Reverend Garrigou-Legrange's article until recently. The recent "changes" to the dogma on the death penalty implemented by Francis and the USCCB, along with all of the raucous deviations that have permeated the church landscape since Francis' election, have forced this Catholic to go back before the Vatican II council to relearn and discover tradition. I've even been devoting time to studying Masonic philosophy so as to be better aware of its insidious doctrines when they crop up under this new pontificate.
Reading through some of Garrigou-Legrange's critique, it became apparent to me that I had encountered this "new theology" elsewhere in my philosophical studies. As Garrigou-Legrange showcases, the metaphysics is the making the mind equal to action or life. Meaning that truth is based, not on reality, but on the shifting sands of human experience. Metaphysically speaking, this throws us back to Heraclitus and the philosophy of perpetual change/relativism. (A self refuting philosophy, but that never stops the enemies of truth.)
We have by now been educated in who the modernists are. They are moral relativists that see the church as an NGO, and have no supernatural faith. Those of us who had our John Paul II goggles on, have slowly had the scales removed from our eyes and have red pilled to understand that, even with his piety, something sinister, "the smoke of Satan" had slipped into the church, unnoticed by the "useful idiots" in the pews (me being one of them.) My eyes are now constantly on the lookout for Masonic philosophy. I no longer look at those in collars without suspicion. Indeed, I feel them out as friend or foe, even with the respect for the authority of their offices. You can almost physically see the demons whispering in the ears of some of our prelates. By their theology, you will know them. But what is that theology?
I have long been of the opinion that culture follows religious tradition and that a philosophy that departs from truth (adequatio rei et intellectus) is ultimately rational justification for a theological outlook. MacIntyre scratched the surface in his After Virtue, of the idea that a philosopher cannot be understood outside of the narrative in which he is found. I postulate that the narrative is always religious. One can see this in philosopher after philosopher that falls outside of the Aristotelian tradition. Philosophy is the handmaid of theology, and it will take it's direction from theology if it is not the rational foundation of theology (as in the Thomistic synthesis).
For instance, (and I realize this is high level so may not be pleasing to the nuance of academics), I do not see much of a jump from sola scriptura to the metaphysics of change. In other words, there is not much of a jump to go from the idea that the individual Christian is the arbiter of scriptural truth to the idea that the individual man is the arbiter of moral and metaphysical truth. Many have connected the dots between the Protestant Reformation and secularism before, but when one assumes religious ideas drive culture, it is quite simple to connect the dots between the self-creator of scriptural truth and the self-creator of moral and metaphysical truth.
Etienne Gilson once criticized Immanuel Kant for implementing his Pietism into his philosophy, stating that the categorical imperative looked a little too much like the Golden Rule. I personally see Newton mixed with Protestantism all over Kant's works. And it's interesting that he is the root of the rotten Hegelian tree that has permeated philosophical thought for two centuries now. That is to say, Kant's realm of understanding and realm of phenomena, and his transcendentalism that cut us off from metaphysical objects, were the principles that lead to Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche (leaving aside the less important philosophers he influenced.)
All of these philosophers, whose principles follow from the Protestant narrative, are, to return to Garrigou-Legrange's article, philosophy of action philosophers, or in common parlance, relativists.
So it was surprising to me to read that the new theology was really the outgrowth of atheistic philosophers of action. The dots were connected for me by the 20th Centuries' greatest Thomist. We have heard, as noted above, that the modernists are people within the Catholic Church that have no supernatural faith. Their metaphysical outlook is the philosophy of change, which is the idea that there is no enduring ontology, but instead a permanent becoming, where there are no unchanging metaphysical objects. Nothing endures from experience to experience. To borrow from Nietzsche, there is no connecting lightening and a flash, there is just a doing-doing. There is no being-doing.
The philosophy of change is philosophically problematic and runs aground on non-contradiction. From reading Garrigou-Legrange's account of the new theology, it became obvious that the new theology is instead an anti-theology. With it existing on the metaphysics of action, it really is just atheism wearing a mask. Now the lack of supernatural belief in the modernists is clear. The worldview rests on atheistic philosophy of change, which rests on Protestant theology. The Reformation was indeed a very bad thing and it's rotten fruit are now poisoning the church from within. A God who makes no demands makes for reality that has no demands. A theology that has no teleology makes for reality that has no teleology. With this philosophy of change comes a reality that makes no demands on ones behavior, so it is enticing from the standpoint of the unbridled passions.
The first thing for those of us who are now woke to do is to unmask the untruth where it hides so subtly. The new theology harkens back to the Garden of Eden. There the devil told our first parents that they would know good and evil. This intimate knowledge was his lying gift. The idea that we could measure morality, that we were the makers of morality, that we could measure being instead of being measured by being. The first and last temptation.
Satan is indeed in the church...
I had never heard of, nor read Reverend Garrigou-Legrange's article until recently. The recent "changes" to the dogma on the death penalty implemented by Francis and the USCCB, along with all of the raucous deviations that have permeated the church landscape since Francis' election, have forced this Catholic to go back before the Vatican II council to relearn and discover tradition. I've even been devoting time to studying Masonic philosophy so as to be better aware of its insidious doctrines when they crop up under this new pontificate.
Reading through some of Garrigou-Legrange's critique, it became apparent to me that I had encountered this "new theology" elsewhere in my philosophical studies. As Garrigou-Legrange showcases, the metaphysics is the making the mind equal to action or life. Meaning that truth is based, not on reality, but on the shifting sands of human experience. Metaphysically speaking, this throws us back to Heraclitus and the philosophy of perpetual change/relativism. (A self refuting philosophy, but that never stops the enemies of truth.)
We have by now been educated in who the modernists are. They are moral relativists that see the church as an NGO, and have no supernatural faith. Those of us who had our John Paul II goggles on, have slowly had the scales removed from our eyes and have red pilled to understand that, even with his piety, something sinister, "the smoke of Satan" had slipped into the church, unnoticed by the "useful idiots" in the pews (me being one of them.) My eyes are now constantly on the lookout for Masonic philosophy. I no longer look at those in collars without suspicion. Indeed, I feel them out as friend or foe, even with the respect for the authority of their offices. You can almost physically see the demons whispering in the ears of some of our prelates. By their theology, you will know them. But what is that theology?
I have long been of the opinion that culture follows religious tradition and that a philosophy that departs from truth (adequatio rei et intellectus) is ultimately rational justification for a theological outlook. MacIntyre scratched the surface in his After Virtue, of the idea that a philosopher cannot be understood outside of the narrative in which he is found. I postulate that the narrative is always religious. One can see this in philosopher after philosopher that falls outside of the Aristotelian tradition. Philosophy is the handmaid of theology, and it will take it's direction from theology if it is not the rational foundation of theology (as in the Thomistic synthesis).
For instance, (and I realize this is high level so may not be pleasing to the nuance of academics), I do not see much of a jump from sola scriptura to the metaphysics of change. In other words, there is not much of a jump to go from the idea that the individual Christian is the arbiter of scriptural truth to the idea that the individual man is the arbiter of moral and metaphysical truth. Many have connected the dots between the Protestant Reformation and secularism before, but when one assumes religious ideas drive culture, it is quite simple to connect the dots between the self-creator of scriptural truth and the self-creator of moral and metaphysical truth.
Etienne Gilson once criticized Immanuel Kant for implementing his Pietism into his philosophy, stating that the categorical imperative looked a little too much like the Golden Rule. I personally see Newton mixed with Protestantism all over Kant's works. And it's interesting that he is the root of the rotten Hegelian tree that has permeated philosophical thought for two centuries now. That is to say, Kant's realm of understanding and realm of phenomena, and his transcendentalism that cut us off from metaphysical objects, were the principles that lead to Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche (leaving aside the less important philosophers he influenced.)
All of these philosophers, whose principles follow from the Protestant narrative, are, to return to Garrigou-Legrange's article, philosophy of action philosophers, or in common parlance, relativists.
So it was surprising to me to read that the new theology was really the outgrowth of atheistic philosophers of action. The dots were connected for me by the 20th Centuries' greatest Thomist. We have heard, as noted above, that the modernists are people within the Catholic Church that have no supernatural faith. Their metaphysical outlook is the philosophy of change, which is the idea that there is no enduring ontology, but instead a permanent becoming, where there are no unchanging metaphysical objects. Nothing endures from experience to experience. To borrow from Nietzsche, there is no connecting lightening and a flash, there is just a doing-doing. There is no being-doing.
The philosophy of change is philosophically problematic and runs aground on non-contradiction. From reading Garrigou-Legrange's account of the new theology, it became obvious that the new theology is instead an anti-theology. With it existing on the metaphysics of action, it really is just atheism wearing a mask. Now the lack of supernatural belief in the modernists is clear. The worldview rests on atheistic philosophy of change, which rests on Protestant theology. The Reformation was indeed a very bad thing and it's rotten fruit are now poisoning the church from within. A God who makes no demands makes for reality that has no demands. A theology that has no teleology makes for reality that has no teleology. With this philosophy of change comes a reality that makes no demands on ones behavior, so it is enticing from the standpoint of the unbridled passions.
The first thing for those of us who are now woke to do is to unmask the untruth where it hides so subtly. The new theology harkens back to the Garden of Eden. There the devil told our first parents that they would know good and evil. This intimate knowledge was his lying gift. The idea that we could measure morality, that we were the makers of morality, that we could measure being instead of being measured by being. The first and last temptation.
Satan is indeed in the church...
Friday, June 28, 2019
Pro-lifers and the Bird
My children today did a life chain with their grandmother where they held signs in defense of life. My 12 year old reported that there were several people who floated the middle finger as they drove by. She noted that her 9 year old brother said, "They are doing a bad thing," and that her younger siblings did not know what it means. Besides the belittling of innocence of random pro-abortion folks; let's face it, with the infanticide bills passing in radical Democrat states we can now unmask the idea of choice. The radical leaders of the abortion movement are pro abortion, pro infant murder, and they have duped some of the useful idiots into thinking they are for choice. I personally understand the "wailing and gnashing" of teeth as the subconscious guilt of those who, punished in their own members, lash out at the reality that confines and measures them. That is why the reactions are fascist.
The whole scenario that my children experienced brought to mind Alasdair MacIntyre's thesis that our culture, coming from forgotten disparate philosophical traditions, talks past each other in argument, having forgotten where our arguments come from. Whether this is true, I can certainly say there is a sense in which we are beyond argument. In a world where relativism rules the day, the vacuum of truth leaves room only for power. What the radicals in our midst - many of them having intellects so darkened by sin - understand is power.
This idea is evident on our social media platforms. My subjective experience has been that people on Twitter are not interested in rational discussions. I have continuously tried to engage others in debate and the trail always runs cold. Moderns are not interested in confronting the true. Instead, they want to be comfortable in their own understanding of right and wrong. Genuine dialectic draws out inconsistencies in thought and I seek the arguments to genuinely challenge my own thoughts about issues.
That said, saying that our relativistic culture is beyond argument is not to say that argument is dead. The hardened ideologue is frozen. These ice men and women would melt under no heat except the heat of grace; the heat of He who is magis intimum (most intimate). A fascist refuses to hear or assume the good will of his opponent in argument. He seeks to use the state to silence opposition, and to create truth with power. The witnesses of argument, however, are not always ideologue's and this is where argument is still effective. It's not fair to say that argument is dead, because humans were made for truth. Argument only dies in those who kill it as haters of the reality that is.
The bird flippers; the pro-abortionists, do not like the reality that the natural law imposes on them. They go beyond argument to wailing and gnashing of teeth. They do not like the truth. Hell is made of such moral self-creators. As the unmakers of reality, they are beyond argument. Truth convicts them. If only they knew their Redeemer, they would wail no more.
The whole scenario that my children experienced brought to mind Alasdair MacIntyre's thesis that our culture, coming from forgotten disparate philosophical traditions, talks past each other in argument, having forgotten where our arguments come from. Whether this is true, I can certainly say there is a sense in which we are beyond argument. In a world where relativism rules the day, the vacuum of truth leaves room only for power. What the radicals in our midst - many of them having intellects so darkened by sin - understand is power.
This idea is evident on our social media platforms. My subjective experience has been that people on Twitter are not interested in rational discussions. I have continuously tried to engage others in debate and the trail always runs cold. Moderns are not interested in confronting the true. Instead, they want to be comfortable in their own understanding of right and wrong. Genuine dialectic draws out inconsistencies in thought and I seek the arguments to genuinely challenge my own thoughts about issues.
That said, saying that our relativistic culture is beyond argument is not to say that argument is dead. The hardened ideologue is frozen. These ice men and women would melt under no heat except the heat of grace; the heat of He who is magis intimum (most intimate). A fascist refuses to hear or assume the good will of his opponent in argument. He seeks to use the state to silence opposition, and to create truth with power. The witnesses of argument, however, are not always ideologue's and this is where argument is still effective. It's not fair to say that argument is dead, because humans were made for truth. Argument only dies in those who kill it as haters of the reality that is.
The bird flippers; the pro-abortionists, do not like the reality that the natural law imposes on them. They go beyond argument to wailing and gnashing of teeth. They do not like the truth. Hell is made of such moral self-creators. As the unmakers of reality, they are beyond argument. Truth convicts them. If only they knew their Redeemer, they would wail no more.
Sunday, June 23, 2019
Slave Morality and Masonic Religious Pluralism
In his 1884 encyclical, Humanum Genus Pope Leo XIII stated the following of the Freemasons and secret societies:
"First, in this way they easily deceive the simple-minded and the heedless, and can induce a far greater number to become members. Again, as all who offer themselves are received whatever may be their form of religion, they thereby teach the great error of this age-that a regard for religion should be held as an indifferent matter, and that all religions are alike. This manner of reasoning is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion, and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other religions." (pa. 16)
He is referencing the idea of religious pluralism or indifferentism that is the hallmark philosophy of Freemasonry. Upon initiation, Freemasons are allowed to swear upon whatever holy book they prefer. It is basically the idea of religious relativism. All religions are on an equal plain, all reveal something of the divine, and all are paths to salvation. Nothing could be more uncatholic. There is either truth or no truth.
The attractiveness of such a proposition is obvious as it hearkens back to the cause of the fall of man. There is either a ontological structure and truth outside of us that measures who and what we are, or we are the measure of things. The whisper of the serpent can be heard silently in the wisdom of Freemasonic pluralism/relativism. Man brings himself to the Masonic temple, and man justifies himself in his own religion or no religion. Man becomes the measure of things, rather than God and His ontology being the measure of man. As the pope notes, this is calculated to destroy all religion as it leads directly to naturalism (there is no God), since the truths of religion are no truths at all under these auspices.
As Leo XIII notes, it is a deception of the simple mind to believe such indifferentism. Later in the encyclical Pope Leo XIII notes how morality goes out the window with such relativism and denial of the truth that the Catholic faith is the one true faith above all faiths. This indifferentism leads to a slave morality - license that is slavery - couched in the language of liberty. How could such pluralism cross into the sphere of action, into morality? How is it that this religious indifferentism squashes freedom in the moral realm? True freedom is a self-disciplining and training in virtue. Laws themselves are the bottom line encouragement for virtue. Exchange virtue for license, and slavery to the passions ensues. Virtue theory teaches that in order to be virtuous, one must obtain the mean of virtue in action. If one struggles with sexual lust, they must discipline the flesh to find the mean of virtue. That is, they must practice saying no to the pleasure to conquer it. The Catholic faith fits like a hand to glove with virtue theory as it simply adds the necessary element of grace to conquer our inordinate desires.
In the theological sphere, Christ showed us that the good is something that must be suffered for. Religious indifferentism is the glorification of the self, of man, as the arbiter of what is true and good. Once man is the arbiter and measure of truth, he no longer strives for the perfection of virtue, as attaining virtue requires self-disciplinary suffering.
By eliminating the importance of the sacrifice of Christ, religious indifferentism turns man over to the weakness of the flesh. In the religious sphere, we no longer have to strive after perfection through picking up our daily cross and suffering along side the savior. Instead, all religions being equal, we no longer need a savior or to make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Thus, we no longer need turn to Christ in His sacraments to further our own virtue, we can just invent the good based on our subjective pleasures.
In the philosophical and psychological sphere, this leads to naturalism and the choice of pleasure over the arduous good of virtue. We lay down our striving, finding our final end in whatever passion is our weakness.
This is the backdoor through which all forms of debauchery slip in under the guise of religious pluralism. Now, like Luther, we sin with impunity and empower our lusts. At this point, though, we no longer lead. We are no longer free. Instead, our passions guide us into a slave morality. A morality in which we cannot say "no" to our lower desires.
Pope Leo XIII correctly noted how morality dies with religious indifferentism. Now that our culture is no longer Catholic and is Freemasonic, we can once again see how prophetic the Catholic Church is. The Freemasons have won the day (so far, it is a long war), and so we now see legislatures voting to murder infants, homosexual pederasty and pedophilia on display with children "drag queens," children marching next to naked men, men in little girls bathrooms, and on and on.
This is the result of the Freemasons capturing the culture. They captured the church and so captured the world - for now. The new world order is upon us, the new world order of slave morality and the tyranny of self. The devil's whisper has never been louder. We are little individuals at war with each other over our lower desires. We are a picture of hell because of our indifferentism. Wailing and gnashing at each other over selfish pleasure. Leo XIII stated it truly. The slave morality is upon us.
"First, in this way they easily deceive the simple-minded and the heedless, and can induce a far greater number to become members. Again, as all who offer themselves are received whatever may be their form of religion, they thereby teach the great error of this age-that a regard for religion should be held as an indifferent matter, and that all religions are alike. This manner of reasoning is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion, and especially of the Catholic religion, which, as it is the only one that is true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other religions." (pa. 16)
He is referencing the idea of religious pluralism or indifferentism that is the hallmark philosophy of Freemasonry. Upon initiation, Freemasons are allowed to swear upon whatever holy book they prefer. It is basically the idea of religious relativism. All religions are on an equal plain, all reveal something of the divine, and all are paths to salvation. Nothing could be more uncatholic. There is either truth or no truth.
The attractiveness of such a proposition is obvious as it hearkens back to the cause of the fall of man. There is either a ontological structure and truth outside of us that measures who and what we are, or we are the measure of things. The whisper of the serpent can be heard silently in the wisdom of Freemasonic pluralism/relativism. Man brings himself to the Masonic temple, and man justifies himself in his own religion or no religion. Man becomes the measure of things, rather than God and His ontology being the measure of man. As the pope notes, this is calculated to destroy all religion as it leads directly to naturalism (there is no God), since the truths of religion are no truths at all under these auspices.
As Leo XIII notes, it is a deception of the simple mind to believe such indifferentism. Later in the encyclical Pope Leo XIII notes how morality goes out the window with such relativism and denial of the truth that the Catholic faith is the one true faith above all faiths. This indifferentism leads to a slave morality - license that is slavery - couched in the language of liberty. How could such pluralism cross into the sphere of action, into morality? How is it that this religious indifferentism squashes freedom in the moral realm? True freedom is a self-disciplining and training in virtue. Laws themselves are the bottom line encouragement for virtue. Exchange virtue for license, and slavery to the passions ensues. Virtue theory teaches that in order to be virtuous, one must obtain the mean of virtue in action. If one struggles with sexual lust, they must discipline the flesh to find the mean of virtue. That is, they must practice saying no to the pleasure to conquer it. The Catholic faith fits like a hand to glove with virtue theory as it simply adds the necessary element of grace to conquer our inordinate desires.
In the theological sphere, Christ showed us that the good is something that must be suffered for. Religious indifferentism is the glorification of the self, of man, as the arbiter of what is true and good. Once man is the arbiter and measure of truth, he no longer strives for the perfection of virtue, as attaining virtue requires self-disciplinary suffering.
By eliminating the importance of the sacrifice of Christ, religious indifferentism turns man over to the weakness of the flesh. In the religious sphere, we no longer have to strive after perfection through picking up our daily cross and suffering along side the savior. Instead, all religions being equal, we no longer need a savior or to make up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Thus, we no longer need turn to Christ in His sacraments to further our own virtue, we can just invent the good based on our subjective pleasures.
In the philosophical and psychological sphere, this leads to naturalism and the choice of pleasure over the arduous good of virtue. We lay down our striving, finding our final end in whatever passion is our weakness.
This is the backdoor through which all forms of debauchery slip in under the guise of religious pluralism. Now, like Luther, we sin with impunity and empower our lusts. At this point, though, we no longer lead. We are no longer free. Instead, our passions guide us into a slave morality. A morality in which we cannot say "no" to our lower desires.
Pope Leo XIII correctly noted how morality dies with religious indifferentism. Now that our culture is no longer Catholic and is Freemasonic, we can once again see how prophetic the Catholic Church is. The Freemasons have won the day (so far, it is a long war), and so we now see legislatures voting to murder infants, homosexual pederasty and pedophilia on display with children "drag queens," children marching next to naked men, men in little girls bathrooms, and on and on.
This is the result of the Freemasons capturing the culture. They captured the church and so captured the world - for now. The new world order is upon us, the new world order of slave morality and the tyranny of self. The devil's whisper has never been louder. We are little individuals at war with each other over our lower desires. We are a picture of hell because of our indifferentism. Wailing and gnashing at each other over selfish pleasure. Leo XIII stated it truly. The slave morality is upon us.
Sunday, June 9, 2019
Voices from hell...
This past week while reading through responses to Bishop Thomas Tobin's Tweet condemning joining in pride parades, I could see the inklings of hell in the responses. Self-righteous haters condemning a prelate of the church, with a pride that sounded only demonic. The moral self-creators of out era sound exactly like hellish ghouls cursing God while making their own truth, wishing to the measure of things instead of being measured by things.
Many of the Tweets circled around the idea that prelates, who allow pederasty to continue under their not so watchful eyes, had no moral authority to condemn "love." Indeed, the Church has been infiltrated and is currently run by the modernist homoheretics. The comical part of the critique was - just a sign of the irrational emotivism of our day - that these self-righteous folks were parading homosexuality without realizing it is homo clerics that were abusing minors. All studies done on the phenomena show that 80% of the abuse was done to post-pubescent boys, quite obviously a homosexual crime. Church haters fail to realize that the homoheritics, at the behest of the communists and Masons, joined the priesthood to hide their "lack of wives" and live lavishly off of the orthodox faithful. This is obvious to anyone with eyes.
Beyond this lack of insight, one particular Tweet stood out to me, and it was someone condemning the Church idea that sexual intimacy should be procreative in nature. The Tweet said something along the lines of "Post menopausal women can't have sex according to the church because they can't have babies. That sex is illicit." First, the Church does not teach that, but secondly it is a misunderstanding of key philosophical understanding.
From the classical (read Thomistic) lexicon, we have the terms per se and per accidens. Now one cannot blame the moderns for being ignorant of the difference between these two terms, since philosophy sidelined itself with the abandonment formal and final causality. Formal causality being the essential act of a thing, and final causality being "that for the sake of which" a cause has. Basically, any given form has a range of effects that it aims at, and these aims are its final cause.
If we review, then, the female sexual organ, we realize quickly that it is for the sake of procreation that it exists. Indeed, the pleasure it attains is merely for the sake of the preservation of the human species. Now, our objector says that once this functionality is gone, then it means intercourse is illicit. However, the lack of procreative functionality is accidental to it's final cause. That is, if you remove the impediment of age, it's per se functionality is procreative.
Similar to blindness in the eye, the lack of procreative functionality is a privation to the properly functioning organ. Remove the impediment, and it's per se functionality returns. Thus, the accident of age does not make sexual intercourse illicit because non procreative function is an accidental circumstance outside the intentionality of the agent in question. This is why nonprocreative sex, with this particular accident, is not illicit.
For Aquinas, moral actions have three basic components, an object, circumstances, and intentions. The object is the action or happening "out there" in mind independent reality. Circumstances are accidents that surround the object and intentions are the aims or targets of the agents. Circumstances and intentions are able to change the essence of an act, or the object. Circumstances, however, can also NOT affect the essence of an act. For instance, if someone is driving along on their way home from work, and accidentally run over someone, the object of the act is a crime of invincible ignorance. If that same person stops at the bar, and then runs over someone, the circumstances have changed the object, and the crime now becomes one of moral fault. Similarly, if the same person had a bad day, and sees the person who caused that bad day riding a bike, and intends to run him over, again, the object has changed because of the intention of the driver.
So, if we take all of that into consideration, we can see how post menopausal intercourse is not illicit. The object of the act is marital unity and procreation. Because of a circumstance that is uncontrollable in terms of intention by the aged woman, the circumstance of age does not change the morality of the act. For, remove the impediment, and the essential characteristic of the sexual organs returns. Basically, to check the intentions a post menopausal woman need merely ask if she were to become pregnant as a result of the intercourse, would she be okay with that? If she has the correct intention, the accident of age makes the act licit.
So, the per se functionality of the sexual organs are procreation. It is per accidens that they do not have this functionality, a circumstantial accident that does not change the essence of the act. Therefore, sexual relations amongst married couples that are not procreative on account of a privation in the sexual organs are licit, but only if there is no purposeful destruction of the procreative functionality. If and when someone mutilates their body in this way, the intention of their act changes the essence or object of the act, and thus makes it illicit. It becomes illicit because it changes the nature of the act, as the end of sex is procreation. By changing the end, one alters the act and acts contrary to nature.
If the moderns hope to be moral again, they need first to return to philosophy that recognizes the four causes. Without final causality, we obliterate nature and in so doing, have no natural law to guide us. No wonder we are a miserable lot...
Many of the Tweets circled around the idea that prelates, who allow pederasty to continue under their not so watchful eyes, had no moral authority to condemn "love." Indeed, the Church has been infiltrated and is currently run by the modernist homoheretics. The comical part of the critique was - just a sign of the irrational emotivism of our day - that these self-righteous folks were parading homosexuality without realizing it is homo clerics that were abusing minors. All studies done on the phenomena show that 80% of the abuse was done to post-pubescent boys, quite obviously a homosexual crime. Church haters fail to realize that the homoheritics, at the behest of the communists and Masons, joined the priesthood to hide their "lack of wives" and live lavishly off of the orthodox faithful. This is obvious to anyone with eyes.
Beyond this lack of insight, one particular Tweet stood out to me, and it was someone condemning the Church idea that sexual intimacy should be procreative in nature. The Tweet said something along the lines of "Post menopausal women can't have sex according to the church because they can't have babies. That sex is illicit." First, the Church does not teach that, but secondly it is a misunderstanding of key philosophical understanding.
From the classical (read Thomistic) lexicon, we have the terms per se and per accidens. Now one cannot blame the moderns for being ignorant of the difference between these two terms, since philosophy sidelined itself with the abandonment formal and final causality. Formal causality being the essential act of a thing, and final causality being "that for the sake of which" a cause has. Basically, any given form has a range of effects that it aims at, and these aims are its final cause.
If we review, then, the female sexual organ, we realize quickly that it is for the sake of procreation that it exists. Indeed, the pleasure it attains is merely for the sake of the preservation of the human species. Now, our objector says that once this functionality is gone, then it means intercourse is illicit. However, the lack of procreative functionality is accidental to it's final cause. That is, if you remove the impediment of age, it's per se functionality is procreative.
Similar to blindness in the eye, the lack of procreative functionality is a privation to the properly functioning organ. Remove the impediment, and it's per se functionality returns. Thus, the accident of age does not make sexual intercourse illicit because non procreative function is an accidental circumstance outside the intentionality of the agent in question. This is why nonprocreative sex, with this particular accident, is not illicit.
For Aquinas, moral actions have three basic components, an object, circumstances, and intentions. The object is the action or happening "out there" in mind independent reality. Circumstances are accidents that surround the object and intentions are the aims or targets of the agents. Circumstances and intentions are able to change the essence of an act, or the object. Circumstances, however, can also NOT affect the essence of an act. For instance, if someone is driving along on their way home from work, and accidentally run over someone, the object of the act is a crime of invincible ignorance. If that same person stops at the bar, and then runs over someone, the circumstances have changed the object, and the crime now becomes one of moral fault. Similarly, if the same person had a bad day, and sees the person who caused that bad day riding a bike, and intends to run him over, again, the object has changed because of the intention of the driver.
So, if we take all of that into consideration, we can see how post menopausal intercourse is not illicit. The object of the act is marital unity and procreation. Because of a circumstance that is uncontrollable in terms of intention by the aged woman, the circumstance of age does not change the morality of the act. For, remove the impediment, and the essential characteristic of the sexual organs returns. Basically, to check the intentions a post menopausal woman need merely ask if she were to become pregnant as a result of the intercourse, would she be okay with that? If she has the correct intention, the accident of age makes the act licit.
So, the per se functionality of the sexual organs are procreation. It is per accidens that they do not have this functionality, a circumstantial accident that does not change the essence of the act. Therefore, sexual relations amongst married couples that are not procreative on account of a privation in the sexual organs are licit, but only if there is no purposeful destruction of the procreative functionality. If and when someone mutilates their body in this way, the intention of their act changes the essence or object of the act, and thus makes it illicit. It becomes illicit because it changes the nature of the act, as the end of sex is procreation. By changing the end, one alters the act and acts contrary to nature.
If the moderns hope to be moral again, they need first to return to philosophy that recognizes the four causes. Without final causality, we obliterate nature and in so doing, have no natural law to guide us. No wonder we are a miserable lot...
Sunday, June 2, 2019
"He shall rule over you."
In a postmodern world where the ontological basis of all argumentation is a nexus of power, one of the most culturally aggravating things for our new atheistic outlook is where woman is placed in the Christian ethos. Various feminist ideologies point to the "patriarchy" which is, from what a I can gather, the boogeyman of a male dominated world where women have unequal access to public goods.
While I am of the opinion that this so called "patriarchy" is a great chimera of our time and has led countless women to a miserable existence - as the further we deviate from the natural law, the further we remove ourselves from personal happiness - I am more and more convinced everyday that the target of these feminists is not the patriarchy, but Christianity. Indeed, they are synonyms. Since we have no metaphysical foundation, no ontological anchor, we swim in this post Hegelian deluge of power. As Nietzsche so aptly noticed with his metaphysical outlook, without God there is nothing but change and competition for power where one more powerful thing overcomes another. This is the metaphysics of feminism.
While I do not here intend to critique the philosophical problems associated with the Nietzschean or Heraclitian metaphysics of change, it is obvious that such a philosophy runs aground on performative self contradiction, so astute minds need not accept its claims.
That said, I have been reflecting lately on Genesis, where the Lord tells man that his punishment for sin will be bringing forth the fruit of the earth through toil. Laborious work is masculinity's curse for having sinned. On the other hand, the feminine curse is painful labor and that her desire will be for her husband and that he should rule over her. Through the eyes of the "will to power" ethos that is the foundation of modern culture, this passage may look like the foundation of the patriarchy and of sheer domination by man over woman. While history is full of this wicked dominating pattern, I have recently wondered about the psychological impact of this curse?
You see, I notice that our culture, post sexual revolution, dehumanizes women and treats them as sexual objects. Our over sexed culture is extremely "masculine." Biology has both burdened and blessed women with pregnancy, and thus, her promiscuity comes at a far greater price for her than for man. Nature has designed woman to be the bearer of life and as such she is biologically the sexual gatekeeper. That said, our culture has reversed that for woman at the behest of man. At the natural level, male sexuality is determined to spread its seed far and wide. Thus, male sexuality is more "visual" and more "promiscuous." But this is exactly what our culture had done to woman! She parades her wondrous form before the lusting eyes of men, and the modern female hero is the scantily clad super model. How masculine a culture is this feminist one!
So, then, feminist women push the sexual liberation of abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and in general promiscuity without responsibility. This is very masculine, at least at the reductive natural level for men. Because we are rational natures, more is expected of men and virtue/happiness require much more than spreading the seed far and wide.
My recent reflections have led me to the understanding that "he shall rule over you" is not merely a physical or social dynamic, but a intra-psychological phenomena within the female psyche. This is expressed by the aforementioned feminism. Man rules over her by her desire for her husband. In the case of feminism, the desire for the husband is to embrace masculinity as the locus of femininity. It is to make the feminine masculine. This is part of woman's curse.
The feminist push for woman in the workplace reflects this "desire," but furthers the curse by making woman embrace man's curse! In my own life, we haven't been financially blessed where my wife could stay with the children while they were little, and the way this works out is that she ends up managing most of the domestics and still has to work. It's not that I'm not there to help, but the young children just naturally gravitate toward mom, and mom has the gift of nurture that puts her in tune with the children's personhood. In short, she is better suited by nature to understand the children and their needs. With work, we just add that much more burden to her. "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." She desires his curse, and his curse rules over her.
While I am of the opinion that this so called "patriarchy" is a great chimera of our time and has led countless women to a miserable existence - as the further we deviate from the natural law, the further we remove ourselves from personal happiness - I am more and more convinced everyday that the target of these feminists is not the patriarchy, but Christianity. Indeed, they are synonyms. Since we have no metaphysical foundation, no ontological anchor, we swim in this post Hegelian deluge of power. As Nietzsche so aptly noticed with his metaphysical outlook, without God there is nothing but change and competition for power where one more powerful thing overcomes another. This is the metaphysics of feminism.
While I do not here intend to critique the philosophical problems associated with the Nietzschean or Heraclitian metaphysics of change, it is obvious that such a philosophy runs aground on performative self contradiction, so astute minds need not accept its claims.
That said, I have been reflecting lately on Genesis, where the Lord tells man that his punishment for sin will be bringing forth the fruit of the earth through toil. Laborious work is masculinity's curse for having sinned. On the other hand, the feminine curse is painful labor and that her desire will be for her husband and that he should rule over her. Through the eyes of the "will to power" ethos that is the foundation of modern culture, this passage may look like the foundation of the patriarchy and of sheer domination by man over woman. While history is full of this wicked dominating pattern, I have recently wondered about the psychological impact of this curse?
You see, I notice that our culture, post sexual revolution, dehumanizes women and treats them as sexual objects. Our over sexed culture is extremely "masculine." Biology has both burdened and blessed women with pregnancy, and thus, her promiscuity comes at a far greater price for her than for man. Nature has designed woman to be the bearer of life and as such she is biologically the sexual gatekeeper. That said, our culture has reversed that for woman at the behest of man. At the natural level, male sexuality is determined to spread its seed far and wide. Thus, male sexuality is more "visual" and more "promiscuous." But this is exactly what our culture had done to woman! She parades her wondrous form before the lusting eyes of men, and the modern female hero is the scantily clad super model. How masculine a culture is this feminist one!
So, then, feminist women push the sexual liberation of abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and in general promiscuity without responsibility. This is very masculine, at least at the reductive natural level for men. Because we are rational natures, more is expected of men and virtue/happiness require much more than spreading the seed far and wide.
My recent reflections have led me to the understanding that "he shall rule over you" is not merely a physical or social dynamic, but a intra-psychological phenomena within the female psyche. This is expressed by the aforementioned feminism. Man rules over her by her desire for her husband. In the case of feminism, the desire for the husband is to embrace masculinity as the locus of femininity. It is to make the feminine masculine. This is part of woman's curse.
The feminist push for woman in the workplace reflects this "desire," but furthers the curse by making woman embrace man's curse! In my own life, we haven't been financially blessed where my wife could stay with the children while they were little, and the way this works out is that she ends up managing most of the domestics and still has to work. It's not that I'm not there to help, but the young children just naturally gravitate toward mom, and mom has the gift of nurture that puts her in tune with the children's personhood. In short, she is better suited by nature to understand the children and their needs. With work, we just add that much more burden to her. "Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." She desires his curse, and his curse rules over her.
Saturday, May 25, 2019
The problem of Idealism
When I was a student in philosophy, I was reminded that Thomists were considered "naïve and dogmatic" because of their acceptance of philosophical realism. The charge was uttered because it was said direct realism could not be demonstrated. That is, one could not prove that extra mental reality existed, it could not be proven that the world we inhabit was nothing other than a dream world invented by our minds.
Of course, Descartes was the first modern to question the validity of what the senses told us, and he imagined a "malignus spiritus" constantly deceiving us to believe extra mental reality existed. He placed the burden of proof on the realists, but got trapped in solipsism and did not succeed in getting out. His mind/body dualism simply charted the course of European philosophy. In France, minds lost their bodies. In England, bodies lost their minds.
If one is familiar with the 1999 film The Matrix you will get the computer ages' version of Cartesian philosophy. Instead of a malignus spiritus, we have a malignus supercomputer that deceives our senses into believing external reality is mind independent.
Before giving my own simplistic or rather "dogmatic" critique of this type of idealism, let me describe for students of philosophy the major forms of what is called epistemology (from the Greek etymology meaning "theories of knowledge.") There is a spectrum that runs from idealism to extreme realism
Idealism means that all external reality is mind dependent, or projections of the mind. Major philosophers that embraced this form of epistemology were Malebranche, Berkeley, and Kant (though with some nuance for Kant.)
The next form of epistemology would be indirect realism. Here, the knowers are only in contact with images of real things in external reality. So, similar to when you imagine something, instead of the actual "direct perception" of the thing, you are in contact with second order intentions, or the image of the real thing. John Locke was a proponent of this form of indirect realism.
Then there is what Aristotelians and Thomists ascribe to, and this is called direct realism. Here, the form of the thing is directly perceived and in the knower without the matter. So, when you perceive the chair in front of you, you are directly in contact with it. For Aristotle, there is hierarchy of how we come to know things. First there are the proper sensibles, which are what the senses come directly in contact with. For sight, it is color or differentiated light, for hearing it is sound, and so on. Then there is what is called the "common sensibles." Aquinas relates that this is how we distinguish the white from the sweet. On my understanding, this is also where the immediate sensible "form" resides. Then you have the imagination where images can be produced, and finally the intellect, which is the abode of the universal understanding.
There is also extreme realism, taught by Plato, that holds that the things of our sense experience are merely imperfect participations in their ideal or perfect Forms. These Forms reside in the realm of understanding and are the changeless universals to which all things adhere.
This brief survey is obviously not exhaustive, but is stated here to get a general lay of the land.
So, the modernists call direct realism naïve and dogmatic; naïve because it accepts reality at face value; dogmatic because it does not demonstrate, but just claims things are the way they are. While I can certainly say I am dogmatic about direct realism, it is less about demonstrating mind independent reality for me, and more about the complications idealism brings forth.
The biggest issue I see with it, is that idealism requires there to be actualities presented to my senses that my mind only holds in potency, but these actualities would have to be already actual for me if my mind were projecting. For example, if you asked me to explain the engineering and physics that go into building a stable bridge, or making a plane fly, I would not be able to explain it from a mathematical-scientific perspective. In short, I personally could not build you a bridge or an airplane. Idealism, from this perspective, at least at the naturalist level, is VERY problematic. My mind simply does not have the actualities to project the mathematical foundation for bridges. That is, I need to be taught physics; in an idealistic epistemology, I would be being taught physics that my mind already knew, i.e. learning would be actualizing an already actual, but then why have to work to learn? Why isn't all knowledge angelic in that having the principle, I would already know the conclusions? Idealism basically says that I have knowledge that I do not have, which is a contradiction.
Now, of course, we could argue like Descartes or the writers of the Matrix and imagine a malignant super intellect deceiving at every moment. Is this imagining or creating, however, not a skeptical hypothetical that is fanciful? If direct realists are naïve and dogmatic, then idealists are fanciful and dogmatic. Imagining this demon, however, will run us into the existence of God, for there can be no spirits composed of essence and existence unless there is One Spirit Whose essence is existence. And God is demonstrably good (we'll save this for another post as I know I'm starting to sound like Descartes). So the only way there is a deceiving malignant higher than us super intellect, is if God wills/allows it.
So, ultimately, naturalistic idealism fails on account of placing potency before act and is rounded out in contradiction. We will revisit the malignant spirit or supercomputer in a later post to review if there are problems with a good God allowing deception at every moment.
Of course, Descartes was the first modern to question the validity of what the senses told us, and he imagined a "malignus spiritus" constantly deceiving us to believe extra mental reality existed. He placed the burden of proof on the realists, but got trapped in solipsism and did not succeed in getting out. His mind/body dualism simply charted the course of European philosophy. In France, minds lost their bodies. In England, bodies lost their minds.
If one is familiar with the 1999 film The Matrix you will get the computer ages' version of Cartesian philosophy. Instead of a malignus spiritus, we have a malignus supercomputer that deceives our senses into believing external reality is mind independent.
Before giving my own simplistic or rather "dogmatic" critique of this type of idealism, let me describe for students of philosophy the major forms of what is called epistemology (from the Greek etymology meaning "theories of knowledge.") There is a spectrum that runs from idealism to extreme realism
Idealism means that all external reality is mind dependent, or projections of the mind. Major philosophers that embraced this form of epistemology were Malebranche, Berkeley, and Kant (though with some nuance for Kant.)
The next form of epistemology would be indirect realism. Here, the knowers are only in contact with images of real things in external reality. So, similar to when you imagine something, instead of the actual "direct perception" of the thing, you are in contact with second order intentions, or the image of the real thing. John Locke was a proponent of this form of indirect realism.
Then there is what Aristotelians and Thomists ascribe to, and this is called direct realism. Here, the form of the thing is directly perceived and in the knower without the matter. So, when you perceive the chair in front of you, you are directly in contact with it. For Aristotle, there is hierarchy of how we come to know things. First there are the proper sensibles, which are what the senses come directly in contact with. For sight, it is color or differentiated light, for hearing it is sound, and so on. Then there is what is called the "common sensibles." Aquinas relates that this is how we distinguish the white from the sweet. On my understanding, this is also where the immediate sensible "form" resides. Then you have the imagination where images can be produced, and finally the intellect, which is the abode of the universal understanding.
There is also extreme realism, taught by Plato, that holds that the things of our sense experience are merely imperfect participations in their ideal or perfect Forms. These Forms reside in the realm of understanding and are the changeless universals to which all things adhere.
This brief survey is obviously not exhaustive, but is stated here to get a general lay of the land.
So, the modernists call direct realism naïve and dogmatic; naïve because it accepts reality at face value; dogmatic because it does not demonstrate, but just claims things are the way they are. While I can certainly say I am dogmatic about direct realism, it is less about demonstrating mind independent reality for me, and more about the complications idealism brings forth.
The biggest issue I see with it, is that idealism requires there to be actualities presented to my senses that my mind only holds in potency, but these actualities would have to be already actual for me if my mind were projecting. For example, if you asked me to explain the engineering and physics that go into building a stable bridge, or making a plane fly, I would not be able to explain it from a mathematical-scientific perspective. In short, I personally could not build you a bridge or an airplane. Idealism, from this perspective, at least at the naturalist level, is VERY problematic. My mind simply does not have the actualities to project the mathematical foundation for bridges. That is, I need to be taught physics; in an idealistic epistemology, I would be being taught physics that my mind already knew, i.e. learning would be actualizing an already actual, but then why have to work to learn? Why isn't all knowledge angelic in that having the principle, I would already know the conclusions? Idealism basically says that I have knowledge that I do not have, which is a contradiction.
Now, of course, we could argue like Descartes or the writers of the Matrix and imagine a malignant super intellect deceiving at every moment. Is this imagining or creating, however, not a skeptical hypothetical that is fanciful? If direct realists are naïve and dogmatic, then idealists are fanciful and dogmatic. Imagining this demon, however, will run us into the existence of God, for there can be no spirits composed of essence and existence unless there is One Spirit Whose essence is existence. And God is demonstrably good (we'll save this for another post as I know I'm starting to sound like Descartes). So the only way there is a deceiving malignant higher than us super intellect, is if God wills/allows it.
So, ultimately, naturalistic idealism fails on account of placing potency before act and is rounded out in contradiction. We will revisit the malignant spirit or supercomputer in a later post to review if there are problems with a good God allowing deception at every moment.
Friday, May 17, 2019
The god of the Loins
A recent Tweet from Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez reads as follows:
"Abortion bans aren't just about controlling women's bodies. They're about controlling women's sexuality. Owning women. From limiting birth control to banning comprehensive sex ed, US religious fundamentalists are working hard to outlaw sex that falls outside their theology. Ultimately, this is about women's power. When women are in control of their sexuality, it threatens a core element underpinning right-wing ideology: patriarchy. It's a brutal form of oppression to seize control of the 1 essential thing a person should command: their own body."
Oddly enough, as I read this, I was reminded of Plato's Republic. In Book 9 of that work, Plato reminds us of the tyrannical soul and how it becomes so. Earlier, in Book 4, Plato had divided the human soul into three parts, the desiring, the spirited, and the rational. The desiring element is that element that, without the rule of reason, would seek to satisfy any and all pleasures, including the grotesque (Plato uses the example of the desiring element, in dreams while reason slumbers, wanting relations with one's own mother.) Plato lays out how the tyrant is someone who, from youth, always has all pleasures satisfied so that no pleasures end up out of bounds. The tyrannical soul will not stop at any crime to satisfy its desires because it cannot control itself. The lack of control gets to a point where it is out of control; he uses the example of the tyrannical soul killing their own parents to satisfy the desire for the latest call girl.
In responses to Ms. Cortez's Tweet, I noticed the typical rhetorical responses that are mere labels, but nothing rationally substantive. One of the most commonly used terms was "tyranny." The basic premise was that banning abortion meant imposing tyranny. The question I posed to myself upon reading the responses was, "What is tyranny?"
Plato gives us the answer. It is the soul that cannot control itself to the point of making all crimes possible to satisfy the desiring element in us. At the state level, it is when the masses cannot control their lusts, so they choose to be ruled by someone who panders to their lusts, as well as satisfying his or her own lusts.
The bottom line is, self-government at the level of republic requires self-government at the level of the individual.
If we parse AOC's comment above, we can unmask where the real tyranny lies. First, she appeals to "power," in the sense of identity politics. Pitch it as the world against women, and you've got the Marxist identity political division of bourgeoisie and proletariat (have's and have nots). Incidentally, in identity politics there is no room for true justice because Marxists will ignore history as the relativistic creation of those who had power in the former epoch. Thus, for the identity Marxist, any contemporary injustice is rendered just because it is in response to historical injustices of the randomly selected power classes of yesteryear. (Just look how the definition of the kulaks in Soviet Russia shifted with the "thieving" needs of the tyrants in charge.) So, there is no crime the underprivileged (however they are relativistically selected) can commit that is unjust. In short, there is no truth but power, and power is to be had by the biggest gun.
So AOC says abortion bans are about controlling women's bodies and sexuality, indeed, she calls it "owning women." Can you see Plato's tyrant? Dangle the red meat of lust and power out in front of those who cannot self rule. The first avenue to control for the tyrant.
She then says that when women are in control of their sexuality, that it threatens the so called "patriarchy." Abortion does the opposite of putting women in control of their sexuality, it takes control away. Pregnancy is a natural control on uninhibited desires. It forces one to practice temperance and to control the tyrant within. Indeed, it's not an easy battle, but virtue is not easily won. Her appeal is to the lower desires, just as Plato said the tyrant always does.
When she talks about "patriarchy," I assume what she means is systemic juridical structures that favor men over women in all spheres of life? If that is what she means, then she is an advocate of that very patriarchy by protecting the oppressors of women through abortion. The majority of women say they had an abortion because of pressure from their boyfriend/spouse; abortion is documented as being used for rape cover up; it puts cultural pressure on women to do the unwomanly and kill her offspring; it affords predatory men the license to use women, and ends up emotionally traumatizing many women who go through abortion. If the patriarchy exists as she believes, she is advocating for it!
Finally, it need not be exhausted here, but the idea that a baby inside a woman is "the woman's body" is scientifically inaccurate.
When Stalin was asked how to conquer America, he responded that one must destroy her morality. AOC's latest Tweet, as Plato shows us, is dangling the meat of lust out there, so the state can step in and take control of your life. Anyone selling "free sex," is seeking to control you through your lower desires. Tyranny lies within before it lies without. Tyranny is in the god of the loins...
Saturday, May 4, 2019
The Masonic God, no God at all
My understanding of the Masonic god is that it widely falls into the deistic interpretation of God. That is, God is the mechanistic god that set the wheels in motion for creation, and then walked away unconcerned about the goings on on this little earth. There are a myriad of issues with the mechanistic picture of reality, but today I would like to focus on the problem with deism and a "god" that is unconcerned with His or "its" creation.
In Aristotelian Thomism, the foundational constituent principles of reality are act and potency. Indeed, if one is to study Aristotle or Aquinas at all, one must understand these two principles. The basic way to understand act is as the "full perfection of a thing" and potency as potentialities or "what a thing can become given its nature absent limiting factors." The classic example given is that of the acorn and the oak tree. An acorn is in potency to becoming an oak tree if it will realize the full perfection of its nature, or if it will become actual.
In classic metaphysics, ultimately potency cannot precede act in the coming to be of things. So, for a human being to come into existence, there must be adult human beings that have reached perfection, or humans in act to realize the potency of sperm and egg.
Now Aquinas defines God as Pure Act. He is the actuality that ultimately actuated the potency of creation. As an infinite power, He did this ex nihilo, or out of nothing. This is something only an infinite power can do. As Pure Act, there is no perfection that can be lacking to God. Thus, he cannot lack any knowledge, or any power, or any goodness or beauty or truth.
So how do we know that God is the Pure Act, or Actus Purus? First off, any perfection there is in reality must come from a cause that has the actuality to cause the effect. That is, an effect cannot have something in it that is not first in its cause either actually, virtually, or eminently. So, God cannot lack any perfection, at least of what we are aware of.
Secondly, if God is lacking a perfection, then He is not God. We can arrive at this by considering the idea of dualistic theology. Dualism, in theology, suggests that there are two equally powerful deities, one good, and one evil. Now, it is not possible for there to be two all powerful gods, as the power of the evil god would be lacking to the good god and vice versa. Thus each god would have a potency, or lack the perfection, of the power of the other god. Therefore, neither would be all powerful gods. There would have to be a third, all powerful cause of the powers of the two gods that were lacking these perfections. Thus, there is only one all powerful God.
So, there must be only one Pure Act that has all perfections. If we return to the idea of adult humans having the act, and semen and egg having the potencies, we quickly realize that there must be an actuality prior to all potencies. As noted before, an effect must have in it what was first in the cause. Thus, anything in existence must have come to be by something already in act. You do not have a pile of dirt, that after sitting as dirt for 2000 years, become a tree, unless something in act draws out the potencies. It is similar in the creation of the human intellect. Evolution seeks to demonstrate that, through time, potencies are actualized. The theory generally works as long as there are myriad of actualities that bring out potencies latent in material reality. Two big question marks are a) the beginning of evolutionary biology, i.e. what set it in motion, and b) how does one arrive at the actuality of intellectual activity from material potencies? There seems to be an infinite gap there, which is why I posit a God, or intellectual actuality.
So what does all of this have to do with the Masonic god? A Pure Act can lack no perfection, meaning that the attributes of a Pure Act would be omniscience, omnipotent, all good, all truth, all beautiful, etc. If this is true, however, it means that the deistic god cannot be Pure Act. For what being that is all knowing and all good, these are necessary consequences of the concept of Pure Act, could even begin to be unconcerned about its creation? If creation is good, and this is demonstrably the case, then how could what is all good be unconcerned about goodness? Furthermore, what being, if it had all knowledge, could not always be aware of the goings on of its creation? Catholicism holds that God created man in His image, which is exemplified by the intellectual powers (intellect and will). If, indeed, intellect and will are a good God's image, then it further intensifies this Pure Act's concern for His creatures. As we see from before, the actuality of intellectual activity cannot be explained by material potencies as intellectual activity is immaterial. (Aristotle notes that all material powers of the soul have a limited range, but the intellect is infinite in range, thus showing its immateriality. Further evidence of the image of God being stamped in humanity).
In short, this all shows that a Pure Act, based on the attributes that must follow on Its being, would be concerned with creation. Thus, the Masonic deistic god is no god at all, for to be unconcerned about reality would mean either it had not the knowledge, or was not good, but then it would not be God.
As we know, at it's highest ranks, Freemasonry is Luciferian. And yes, Lucifer certainly is NOT concerned about creation, other than to destroy the image of God that is in it. The Freemasonic god is no god.
Friday, April 5, 2019
Introduction
Readers of this blog, based off of the title "Resident Thomist" may be aware that I have a radio segment on KCRD called a "Minute with the Bellowing Ox." Through much prayer and fasting lately, the Lord has put it on my heart that the gift I've been given is that of teacher. 10 years ago I started the "Magisterial Warrior" blog that was rather polemical in its outlook. While I enjoy writing polemics, it dawned on me that in an unphilosophically trained epoch, the core of what I was writing may be missed. Similarly, I've wondered if the biting tone may turn hearts and minds away from Truth. Perhaps a more benevolent/educational approach to the foundations of my own thinking on the cultural issues of our day might prove more evangelical. Since I am one who had to work at understanding the heady philosophy of Aquinas and the whole tradition he came out of, I thought it would be pertinent to start a blog that teaches the philosophical basics before getting into polemics. Of course, the satanic foolishness of our culture may force my hand to sometimes temporarily lash out at untruth utilizing the philosophical categories of the Thomistic tradition.
For KCRD, as well, I have been writing a newsletter and I have gotten feedback/requests to teach classes. The current familial situation and work requirements make it impossible for me to teach courses. So, I will take my musings here and hope that this becomes and online "course" that people will read.
My vision for this blog is to be a single, simplified stop for philosophical inquirers into the Thomistic tradition. Polemics may come, but only because Truth is polemical and forces us to take sides.
I am writing a newsletter for KCRD currently that is called "Foundations." This is where this blog will go. Once I figure out how to design, I hope to provide links to definitions within the Aristotelian categorical framework. I will post the "Foundations" newsletter postings on this blog, perhaps with a little tweaking so as to provide links and citations to sources, as well as to take it out of the 500 word format.
Long term, I would like to see this get to "in medias res" where I started with soldiersofthemagisterium 10 years ago. Graduate school and children cut that blog off prematurely. We may get back to it again, but for now, this blog will be a foundation to the Thomistic worldview and why I find it the most compelling philosophy there is.
In short, this will be a teaching blog. If I figure out how to design better, I'm hoping that the early postings can be sidebar links so students of philosophy can browse and find what they need to understand the Thomistic philosophical tradition.
Of course, we will engage other philosophies, not to incorporate them, but to do battle with them the way all truth does battle. We will be as thoroughly Thomistic as we can be and engage no straw men.
Finally, the vision is still in the "fluid" stage, and I reserve the right to let the muse strike me as fit. The main thrust will be educational, but there will most likely be commentaries along the way.
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