Satan’s main strategy in the modern world is to convince men that he exists and that all human beings are primarily good and are bad for secondary reasons such as poverty or problems in brain-chemistry or… Whatever. Satan is a useful fiction in the thoughts and discourse of even the most rational and least superstitious … [Read more…]
There is something describable by the term `human nature’ and something else describable by the term `human personhood’. We’ve confused the two greatly in our modern world, so intellectually challenged in nearly all fields of thought but science and technology and so morally challenged in all fields including science and technology. To orthodox Trinitarian Christians, … [Read more…]
Pope Francis has recently caused a stir by allegedly claiming there to be no Hell and even possibly once claiming there to be no Hell, Purgatory, or Heaven. See Francis, Spin Doctor To Himself. His Latest Exploits. I also have speculated there be no Hell and tend strongly to that view, but I’m a firm … [Read more…]
We Are the Image of God, Except When that Requires Effort on Our Part At an Easter Vigil Mass (RC), I was a lector—5th reading. That reading is from the book of the prophet Isaiah and includes these lines: For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the LORD. … [Read more…]
In a recent article, Sacred Music. An Appeal To Restore Hearing To the Deaf, the Italian Catholic journalist, Sandro Magister, writes of criticism by musicians and musician-scholars of the loss of tradition in the liturgical music in the Roman Catholic Church: “This disdain for Gregorian chant and traditional repertoires is one sign of a much … [Read more…]
Sacramental Christians need to have an understanding of this world which is compatible with sacramental Christian beliefs. You can’t believe the Creator is present, let alone Present on the altar, when you have an understanding of the physical world which is inconsistent with such a Presence. A particularly important part of the physical world is … [Read more…]
I’ll beat again on a drum, though perhaps a different region of that large and complex drum. Let’s imagine a Catholic confessional booth with a sign over the entrance: If you feel good about it, it’s not a sin. Don’t bother to enter. This is one of the possible sins against the Holy Spirit: To … [Read more…]
Once again, I’ll state a standard Jewish and Christian view of man: man can be usefully and truthfully seen as a creature made of mind and heart and hands. This points to state of unity which is not achieved by men in this mortal realm but might be achieved by the resurrected who share the … [Read more…]
In a recent essay, Science and Naive Anthropocentricism, I wrote: Somewhere—I believe in The Perfectibility of Man, the philosopher, John Passmore, points out the real problem with belief in an all-powerful God: Such a God is consistent with any conceivable world. Only sloppy and ill-disciplined thinkers could seriously believe that the existence of a coherent, … [Read more…]
We live in a world driven by processes of evolution and development. Our human beings, individual and communal, have been created and shaped by more specific processes of evolution and development. In particular, our minds are shaped as we respond actively to reality in its concrete and abstract realms and aspects. Some Medieval thinkers made … [Read more…]