Henri Bergson provides an interesting discussion where he tells us: Why, in other words, is not everything given at once, as on the film of a cinematograph? The more I consider this point, the more it seems to me that, if the future is bound to succeed the present instead of given alongside of it, … [Read more…]
Christ is ever present in all that exists, along with His Father and their Spirit. Yet, the traditional Christian belief is that He becomes truly present in the consecrated bread and wine during a proper Eucharistic Rite. See John 6:53 for one of Christ’s own rather blunt statements on the issue. Yet again, even many … [Read more…]
I have read a lot of vague arguments that claim to shoot down scientistic attacks upon Christianity. I have read a smaller number of very good arguments of that sort. From a certain viewpoint, those arguments — good or vague — are beside the point. We can divide human knowledge in various basic ways, and … [Read more…]
There are actually three crises which concern me: The attacks upon Christianity as being the cause of the decay of the Roman Empire — which Gibbon and some other modern scholars revived. I believe these attacks in their original form peaked sometime before the theological career of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, … [Read more…]
I discovered an interesting article on the Internet, Praxeology, War, Democracy, and the State by Roderick T. Long of Auburn University. See Roderick T. Long’s Home Page or Wikipedia article on praxeology for a definition of ‘praxeology’. If you can’t read a DOC formatted file, do a google search and you’ll be offered an html … [Read more…]
The claim in the title of this entry is currently a vague idea, one based on a recent reading of Time and Free Will and a currently ongoing reading of Creative Evolution — I’m about halfway through. A little intellectual history: Etienne Gilson studied under Henri Bergson. At some point, perhaps after finishing his studies … [Read more…]
I’ll start by asking two seemingly strange questions: Should we expect Heaven, the world of the resurrected, to be a magical world as in pagan myths of other worlds? Should we expect to spend time without end gallivanting around with all sorts of strange winged creatures and looking down into the Abyss of Hell — … [Read more…]
I seem to have spoken of Creation is two ways. There’s no real inconsistency but I was confused myself for a while a few days ago. In my most recent posting, What is Mind?: Part 4. What Does God Know?, I spoke as if the Primordial Universe, the stuff underlying all of Creation, is analogous … [Read more…]
Obviously God knows all. Perhaps the real question is: “What is there to be known?” But the questions are the same at a very fundamental level. What God knows is what there is to know and what there is to know is known by God. First, if things are true, that is — if Creation … [Read more…]
Reductionism is often seen as explaining something away and, unfortunately, that’s often the goal of those doing the reducing. This isn’t a new development in modern thought. When St. Augustine explained the mind in terms of three components — intellect, memory, and will — he was reducing a complex entity to three components he felt … [Read more…]