As of my writing this, there is one review for this book, written by a self-proclaimed left-wing secular humanist. It’s a good review, don’t get me wrAs of my writing this, there is one review for this book, written by a self-proclaimed left-wing secular humanist. It’s a good review, don’t get me wrong, but Catholic Bros, you’re dropping the ball on this one. In fairness, St. Bonaventure has come to play the Sham to St. Thomas Aquinas’ Secretariat. Or perhaps St. Bonaventure is swallowed up by that supernova within his own order, St. Francis. If it were dependent upon my recent interest in St. Thomas Aquinas alone, I probably would never have seriously encountered St. Bonaventure. My path here starts with a television show for children of all things…in a language I don’t speak (it’s called O Pequeno Francisco if you are seriously interested). It’s so beautiful that I eventually wanted to know how well it lines up with the actual St. Francis. The source I ended up with is, of course, The Life of St. Francis by St. Bonaventure. A tangential Benedict XVI biography also brought up St. Bonaventure. So I read Ratzinger’s work. Interesting stuff. Now I’m at Gilson, and Gilson does not disappoint.
If nothing else, one can dispense with the idea that Franciscan spirituality has to be anti-intellectual. Philosophy needed the shake up of St. Francis as much as anyone. I’m not going to sign on with everything St. Bonaventure says, especially in terms of using the Scriptures as a guide to future events, but I think the man was on to something when he denied rationality its own ground as if it were separate from theology. There is no way one can start with God and then examine anything as if God were not. While St. Thomas hoped to show that creatures are not God, St. Bonaventure will not let us every forget that every creature is linked closely to God.
The Thirteenth Century was far more interesting than I had given it credit. I’m kicking myself for not taking notes to help write a better review. About fifty different topics I learned things about and could discuss if it was brought up, but I have no idea how to organize it here....more
Let's get the obvious out of the way: this is not a shortcut to understanding St. Thomas Aquinas. You'll have to at least try to tackle the Summa. ButLet's get the obvious out of the way: this is not a shortcut to understanding St. Thomas Aquinas. You'll have to at least try to tackle the Summa. But afterwards, books like this one by Etienne Gilson come in handy in reflecting upon the philosophy of that great saint.
The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas is not a summary of the Summa, though I could see how one could use it as such. Gilson has a point to make that is not accepted by all Thomists. His point concerns the famous debate concerning existence and essence in God, that God's essence is to exist. Gilson draws two ways of understanding this idea, the essentialist and the existentialist. The former takes being as a noun, the latter takes it as a verb, an act. Given the order of the Universe in St. Thomas, in which every being is striving to achieve its last end, which consists in the fulfillment of its act (as opposed to potency), that distinction is rather important. It helps to sidestep the pitfalls of Plato, in particular his rejection of the physical world and some very weird implications of his idea of the Forms. Essence is a substance that can be defined; if God's essence is existence, than God can be defined, and finding anything that fits that definition proves God. This is more or less St. Anselm's famous "the greatest thing conceivable is God; we can conceive it; ergo God is" argument.
The problem, and it was St. Thomas who pointed this out, is that we cannot define God. It's not just simply that God is so far above us; we're just barely above animals in terms of intelligence. We're absolutely feeble beings prodding along gathering facts from sensory experiences. Angels, as pure intellectual beings, blow us out of the water. We're not going to prove God by showing a fulfilled definition. We're barely able to speak about what God is at all, so much so that we almost have to exclusively speak of Him as what He is not (the via negativa).
Here St. Thomas does something interesting, revolutionary: if we cannot behold God directly in experience, than we shall have to prove His existence indirectly through His effects which our limited, sensory bound intelligence can pick up and analyze. St. Thomas, following Aristotle, sees value in the physical world of particulars as well as the universal world of ideas. Indeed, our only path to those universals is through the particulars.
And the key to this is Being itself, the first principle. From here, Gilson follows St. Thomas quite closely in argument and order, weaving the web of the most beautiful philosophy ever devised. I cannot summarize it here. All I can say is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't ask one to deny something we know is true.
St. Pius X wrote this encyclical against the emerging heresy of modernism, a slippery term but not an impossible one to grasp. Our good saint rightly St. Pius X wrote this encyclical against the emerging heresy of modernism, a slippery term but not an impossible one to grasp. Our good saint rightly saw unity underlying this belief and goes into detail about its philosophical underpinnings. I won’t go into all of the details as I could not do so nearly as clearly or concisely as St. Pius could, but I do want to highlight the a priori assumption of agnosticism on all fields of study. The starting assumption is that anything miraculous can be rejected as beyond our ability to study and know through science. A slippage of thought occurs here, one not acknowledged: though that assumption does not mean said events did not occur, the assumption of agnosticism jumps to the conclusion that they did not. An unnecessary division is made between Faith and Science (the latter often including studies in history, archeology, sociology, etc.). Hence the search for the “historical” Christ. This is not so much agnosticism (the declared principle of modernists) as it is atheism.
The list of insanity St. Pius predicts would be accepted following modernist thought has proven all too real: the belief that all religions are the same or equally valid, that the truth of our faith is grounded in our spiritual feelings and not on the authority of the Church, that dogmas can change based on changes in those ephemeral spiritual feelings, and ultimately that the source of truth about God is man. That last point can’t help but end in Pantheism (we are all God!) or atheism (we make rather pathetic gods).
Many have tried to distill Christ (or at least his Divinity) out of Christianity, but I’m yet to see that work anywhere. Either this is the Bride of Christ, infallible, the gate of salvation and the hope of us weak, sinful mortals, or it is not. It is a bold claim, but that has to be faced squarely. To say the Church is an avenue to salvation, but that it needs to tweak its teachings, be more pastoral by letting the sheep run wherever they will rather than leading them, less focused on sin, more focused on contemporary issues, and generally just in need of dropping the silly parts disproved by Almighty Science is to say the Church is, and can be, no more than a social club. Man is not going to improve God, and once it is attempted, the whole game is up. Again, the Church proper makes a bold claim. Camels through the eye of a needle, eating the flesh and blood of the Son of God, the Resurrection of the dead, the Incarnation of God into God-Man, the forgiveness of sins.
Ironically, it seems many, many Catholics, especially clergy, tone all of that down and flirt with modernism because they are afraid of frightening people. We should be more afraid of boring people. Those bold claims are what the world needs for the simple enough reason that they are true. And people are looking for this, but not finding it anywhere.
Credo in unum deum…that is a bolder claim than the rest combined. If that is believed, the rest are no impediment to belonging to the Church. If it can’t, the claims of miracles and divinity will seem embarrassing and need to be strained out.
But once you strain objective divinity out, divinity not subject to human whims, what do you have left?
It seems hard to believe ten years have passed since I read this last, though I'm not sure why: I'm certainly very different than I was then, and so iIt seems hard to believe ten years have passed since I read this last, though I'm not sure why: I'm certainly very different than I was then, and so is the world I live in. Perhaps it is just the idea that ten years could go by almost unnoticed save for this marker.
But some things don't change, and my appreciation for this book apparently falls into that category. Cicero was a master when he wasn't praising himself, and my recent appreciation of St. Augustine owes no small debt to Cicero's influence upon the great Doctor. The classical view of a commonwealth as more than a matter of contract, as more than a matter of the form of government, as something more primitive and deeper than utility, is an important one in understanding many of the disturbances upsetting the Western world today. Community has almost a mystical quality to it and we undermine community at our own peril. Community is more than functioning laws and markets, and Cicero rightly notes that a state can continue even if the Commonwealth has ceased. Cicero lived in a time when it became apparent that the old Rome, the polis or small state, was no more; that Rome had morphed into something beyond its own constitution, despite the continuation of the forms (the Consuls, the Temples, the Forum, and all of the other trappings that expressed the meaning of Rome but were not the meaning themselves). Rome's constitution would change with the death of Cicero; its culture would stagger along, trying to justify its telos with an odd marriage of philosophy and paganism, but Rome as Scipio understood it would be blown to dust by a carpenter from Nazareth only a few decades after the death of Cicero.
The anniversary of which happens to be tomorrow. As beautiful as Scipio's Dream is, I hope tomorrow Cicero will celebrate his anniversary of a far more beatific vision, one that does not depend upon us saving the state or the community, but upon joining a far more perfect society....more
An easy little read. Wouldn't recommend it as a first encounter of St. Augustine, but it is a nice little refresher. Honest about both his genius and An easy little read. Wouldn't recommend it as a first encounter of St. Augustine, but it is a nice little refresher. Honest about both his genius and his limitations, the latter of which St. Augustine would certainly own up to. That's why I love about St. A. so much: he was a seeker who wanted the truth, not confirmation of whatever it was he held that day. A few weird typos and one serious mixup about hypostatic/homoousios, but otherwise sound. ...more
I love used book sales and used book shops. Many, many books have been written that are not worth the paper they are printed on, but every here and thI love used book sales and used book shops. Many, many books have been written that are not worth the paper they are printed on, but every here and there a good book just fails to catch the attention of the public, and usually the few copies that exist end up in these used book offerings. I'm more than happy to gamble a couple of bucks on such books.
Rubin's work is an overview of four Chinese philosophical schools. Chinese history and philosophy are not my strong points, so I greatly appreciated this simple introduction to Confucianism, Legalism, Taoism, and Mohism (that last one being completely new to me). Confucius extolled the leader of the small kingdom who could rule by force of moral personality and not the letter of the law, a morality shaped and perfected by tradition and culture providing both guidelines and personal connections, in effect ruling as a father over a family. Legalism and Mohism came about during the Warring States Period, a time period this book has made me curious about, when the old tradition of the Zhou Dynasty could no longer restrain the ambitions of local warlords. Ruling now became a matter of science, of applying rewards and punishments, whereby the state became the purpose and the men in it became means to that end. The cultured men and traditional ways were viewed as either wasteful (Mohism) or downright dangerous (Legalism). Taoism rejects mankind's feeble attempt to be more than animals; their rejection of civilization itself has apparently been the nucleus for a number of murderous revolts in the past.
Of course one should pay attention to the author's story. Rubin was able to print a study like this only because the official Marxist-Leninist ideology had not yet come up with much of an official interpretation of ancient Chinese philosophy. In fact, that is exactly why Rubin went into the field, so he could think freely. The connotations this book contains certainly do not support Soviet theory, though, and Rubin became the strangest type of prisoner in the world, a vital expert in Ancient Chinese Thought whose very knowledge of dead philosophers would be a national security threat should Rubin leave the country, which he tried to do in the early 1970's. Effectively, Rubin was under house arrest, with the "house" being the Soviet Union.
I doubt Rubin would be much appreciated today. He speaks of these ancients as living interlocutors whose thoughts do not die, as discussing ideas with transcendent meaning that are not reducible to the philosopher's historical, social, economic, or political conditions. These ideas are no more in vogue among our academics than they were in Soviet universities. But it certainly spoke to me.
This book was enlightening on two very different subjects. Certainly worth the dollar or so I spent on it. ...more
A skim read; after sixteen years, it seemed worth the time to brush up on what the Philosopher had to say on politics, especially given how different A skim read; after sixteen years, it seemed worth the time to brush up on what the Philosopher had to say on politics, especially given how different politics in this nation have become since my sophomore year in college.
Every young person catching the politics bug should take the time to read this book. The basics are all there. Other reviews will cover that for you. Again, this was a skim review for me; I wanted to remember some things lost and see what my mind would focus on different this time. What I came away with was this:
* Man is a political animal. That's more than "we take part in politics." Much of who we become, our language, our culture, our ethics, our customs do not unfold from us sui generis. I was rather fortunate to be reading Dietrich von Hildebrand along with Aristotle. We need to evaluate our culture against an objective standard rather than taking that culture as the standard. At the same time, we cannot be hypercritical about these matters, either. Our polis needs to be maintained. Aristotle would appreciate the mean needed between blind acceptance and blind criticism of that which we inherit and should pass on to our offspring.
* What is a city, a polis, a nation? The seem to be like rivers, the parts always changing and yet the whole always remaining. Yet if enough of the parts change, perhaps the whole ceases to be what it is. And the parts do change. The United States has changed considerably. It will continue to do so. But what are the essential elements that should not change, that if we changed them we would cease to be what we were? I think this is the big issue of our day. It's more than the libertarian social contract between people.
* Friendship as a political value. This pops up a couple of times. I find it interesting that he specifically mention the threat of a small ruling class closing itself off to "friendship" with the lower classes, especially in marriage. The rulers are to rule with charity towards the ruled. That's unlikely to happen where the rulers see the ruled as foreigners.
* The polis has a teleological end, something more than the social contract of Locke. Eudomnia, happiness, requires the city, and the city is aimed at that end. Passing on culture is an important aspect of that goal.
* Causes of faction. I'm just going to refer the reader to Book V, Chapter 3. Some of those issues are at play today.
* The three values a person needs to hold office: loyalty to constitution, capacity to do the job, and character (with an emphasis on justice). Does anyone running for President meet all three of those?
* Perhaps the most important point of the work is in Book VII: politics is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
* The point of education is not techne, but epistime. It is not just knowing how to do things, but in knowing itself....more
A tough read, to be sure, but that's what happens when you try to describe the indescribable. Certainly an important historical read in theology and aA tough read, to be sure, but that's what happens when you try to describe the indescribable. Certainly an important historical read in theology and a key work in negative theology. One would really have to work to make it a devotional of sorts, but there are definitely passages worth deep consideration in our everyday life. Above all, Pseudo-Dionysius inspires a great sense of humility before that which is Life greater than life, Wisdom that gives wisdom itself, Being that's essence is existence. ...more
Del Noce is a big name among those critiquing modernity; to those wondering just why things don't seem quite right and haven't lied to themselves abouDel Noce is a big name among those critiquing modernity; to those wondering just why things don't seem quite right and haven't lied to themselves about how evil our time is (that we have the most poverty or racism or anything else that is blatantly not true), Del Noce is probably a must read. "Probably a must read" is a strange thing to type, but 1) the man saw through the post WWII order and wasn't impressed and 2) the man was an egghead. Richard Weaver and C. S. Lewis have far more readable books against modernity, but neither is as penetrating as Del Noce. Anyway, this is not going to be easy is my point. This isn't a book per se, but rather a collection of essays, which means there will be quite a bit of repetition. Given how academic this is, however, that's not always a bad thing. Del Noce expected his audience to know Marx, Hegel, Comte, Giovanni Gentile, Lenin, Croce, Kant of course, Pascal, Juvulta (?), Teilhard, Maritain, and a host of others. Sometimes he'll deign to explain what this philosopher said; at other times, he'll just summarize their position and toss in a "but this cannot survive Pascal's critique" and assume we'll just be like "oh, Pascal would have DESTROYED this argument!!" Meanwhile, I'm looking at my copy of Pascal's works on my bookshelf and wondering why the local used bookstore won't give me credit for a trade.
So, at least half of this probably went over my head. A second reading would be very helpful, but I'm exhausted from the first and have to return it to the library shortly. And even then, I would have to bone up on Rosmini, starting with learning his first name.
With that all in mind, let me jot down what I did get out of those monumental 250 page book:
First, there is a crisis in modernity (which is, yes, the title of another of Del Noce's books, but one written after this one). The World Wars truly broke our understanding of life. In particular, anything smacking of "truth" or "transcendence" is written off as too dangerous, the seeds of fascism (Del Noce notes the irony in accusing Christianity of fostering Nazisim and not the pseudo-scientific, neo-pagan, vitalist foundations it actually claimed). Marx was wrong because Marx was, ironically, too religious, even if his religion was militantly atheistic. The promise of the Revolution and utopia in the Future were tenets of faith no less so than Revelation and Heaven. The modern world we live in took the issue of religion right off the table. There is no debate anymore; people can practice religion as a form of entertainment, say, but as an actual force that defines the world around us, it is practically dead, and people are practically atheists. This, mind you, was in the late 1960's.
The implications of this new worldview are massive. For starters, it isn't working, hence the "crisis" in the crisis of modernity. But modernity itself is a value now, a badge of honor for those living in this time for not being as backward as those who came before. The 1968 student revolts are seen as an example of this paradox: they both knew things were amiss but were so deeply absorbed into the modernist project that they couldn't reject that project itself. And so they achieved nothing. 2020 is a repeat I'm afraid. Get everyone riled up, expose how unhappy we are with our world, get the corporations to sign on, but see if anything actually changes. We have the allusion of democracy because we have functional elections, a two party system, etc, but "democracy" as equality of people isn't any nearer today than it was at any other point in history. Del Noce does not talk about why, but the short of it is we can't all be influencers.
The problem lies in the pointlessness of life preached by modernity, but never openly. Be authentic! Be novel! All that jazz leads absolutely nowhere. "Authenticity" is an empty buzzword that Ryszard Legutko correctly points out used to have meaning, namely, that a thing was what it claimed to be. Be novel? Why? So that ten minutes later, you can be forgotten as old hat while someone else becomes novel? Newness for its own sake is a joke. And at heart, we know this. The mental health crisis is a sign of that. We know this is not working, but having trusted the Really Smart People that this way of living is the only good way of living, it shouldn't be a surprise to see so many people depressed when the goals they chased or even achieved fail to satisfy.
This is the life of "well-being." It amounts to keeping up with the Jones and curating your social media feed to project an image of success. And we are miserable. Our grandparents were not this unhappy, their parents were not, nor the generation that went before them. And what lies we tell ourselves to justify this. "We have never had Issue X worse than now!" Really? Poverty was never worse than today? Racism was never worse than today? Healthcare was never worse than today? But if those things are not true, how can we be so miserable, so depressed, so dependent upon psychological care?
Truth. That's something people are not much interested in anymore, oddly, and Del Noce says as much. Authenticity, novel, new, power, sure sure sure, but truth? Anyone using that word anymore? No, it doesn't match up well with self-definition, novelty, blah blah blah. An example: the Tolkien Society has just taken the opportunity to imply Frodo and Sam could be homosexual. A novel take, a new take, but a true one? Well, that waited for Christopher Tolkien to die first for a reason. The idea that J. R. R. Tolkien, a traditional Catholic, would support that is ludicrous. Our entire society is ripe with stupid, blatant lies. "The election was stolen" cried both candidates of the 2016 election.
Anywho. Truth matters. These lies eat at our soul, our society, our sanity. Del Noce points out that we have given people divine attributes and pretended eternal truths are merely passing, temporal things.
Both Del Noce and Reiff hit an a frightening truth: our modern world is incapable of creating values not subject to modernity's own criticism of values, namely that they are said merely passing and temporal opinions. Unable to build any real worldview, most people not content with Bread and Circus take to destroying our faith in values. Things like our nation, our family, anything concerning sexual norms and the like. All are outdated products of their time, you see. Well, we're almost out of sexual norms to violate; give it a couple of years and pedophilia will be openly preached and opposition condemned. What then? Will we all be happy then? No, we'll need to either create new values (which, again, are openly acknowledged to be passing jokes) or find some other value to destroy. This roads ultimately runs to Auschwitz for the lack of anything else to do.
There is no revolution coming, of course, or at least not a Marxist one. Rather than overthrow the bourgeois, we all became bourgeois.
When will the crisis come to a head? It already has. This is the crisis. Europe is well on its way to heat death and the United States is following closely.
I suppose I should stop now, as this is less of a review and more of a me trying to work out what it is I just read. I'm sure it would not stand up to Pascal's critique. But the things Del Noce had to say are true and important, so I must do my best to bring those true (now and forever) ideas and see how they work out on the temporal (passing) realm I see before me. Plato, you bastard...
Last point: Del Noce saw the Catholic Church as the only possible bulwark against this generation of Last Men, but was horrified by the progressive Catholics then taking charge. He rightly points out that while they may have meant well (helping the poor, preventing fascism, etc.), they failed to baptize Marx, but Marx did not fail to unbaptize them. By undermining their own doctrines and dogmas as mere products of historical situations and their economic production, they undermined everything they stood for, those things also being merely manifestations of historical circumstances and not Truth. Most who went down that path ended up atheists, even if they stayed in the Church, even high positions within it. But there is nothing, nothing, that can give us a chance at the good life rather than the life of well-being save the Church.
To go back to Tolkien: we can either have the Lord of the Rings as written, where truth and courage and justice and friendship and faith and love have meaning in the narrative of our lives which can end in the Undying Lands, or we can claim the highest form of life is simply impossible without a hobbit penis in a hobbit orifice.
Not for the fainthearted. I hardly know what else to say. A deconstruction of postmodernism using the very style of postmodernism. Brilliant flashes mNot for the fainthearted. I hardly know what else to say. A deconstruction of postmodernism using the very style of postmodernism. Brilliant flashes mixed in with muddle. For that reason, I'm just going to bullet point a few ideas that really struck me.
* 1st World (paganism) based on Fate, 2nd World (monotheism) based on Faith, 3rd World based on criticism of that which came before. No positive message that is taken seriously, no true Utopia despite the occasional bits of rhetoric. Modern art and scholarship resembles what the Catholic schoolmen would call the via negativa. We cannot say anything positive without it being fiction, but we sure can use the acid of criticism and mockery to destroy all that came before.
* Man's place in this world is related to our social order, which itself is based on sets of authority about the Truth (the sacred order). To deny any order is to fully liberate man, straight into the freedom of nihilism and pointlessness. Hence the need of therapists to replace priests.
*Teaching Higher Illiteracy. The best way to destroy all of the knowledge and tradition of the past is not to criticize it, but just not to present it at all. Basic elements of the Western World, such as the Bible, are now complete strangers to the newest generations. They wouldn't even know to go looking for them, and just to make sure they don't, we'll entertain them with pop culture designed to shorten their attention span to such a point that they couldn't put in the work needed to rediscover the past.
*Plato was right about those damn artists.
* Culture is the expression of the sacred. Multiculturalism is nonsense; you cannot express multiple sacred orders. What you end up expressing is none.
*Art does not represent, it is the thing merely crystallized. Modern art *is* nonsense.
* "Right reading is inseparable from right living." “Different day/same shit” as a creed of the 3rd world. No holy days (a la Charles Taylor). We quite literally are shit. * Abortion as part of the “throw away” culture. “life unworthy of life” is a Nazi phrase, and pro-choice. The anti-mother. * The horror of life unremembered- no Masses for the Dead in modern culture. * “The third culture expects too much from sexuality.” Archbishop Sheen said the same! * Our society sees all as a lie, and lies all the time. The Truth will set you free…(not mentioned: and the Law of that Truth will not be reduced one iota). *I/Thou distinction. We must love something other than ourselves…or hate something other than ourselves. Current culture’s cynicism too acidic for love, hence hate. * Race/class/gender as primary truths in third culture. True primordial truth is deeper than this, however. * Nations must have a declaration of dependence upon their sacred order and it must be continually ratified (teachers as police/prophets/those who either pass this along or do not) * Not mentioned by Reiff: The Giver as prophecy. We must continually speak, create, paint, sculpt, sing the Truth. Not enough to just hand over what we inherited; we must respeak the Truth. Surprised Reiff did not mention the parable of the talents here. Traditional Catholics must, absolutely must, do this. Cannot live in 1920. * “The Gulag Archipelago is the greatest book of remembrance, the greatest martyrology …” I agree. * Laughter as anti-prayer. Not mentioned, but the role of late night TV “comics” in the rise of Trump has a lot to do with how much average folks have noticed that the elites truly despise them. *Not mentioned but should have been: the role of Martin Luther in creating this catastrophe. * When the sacred is gone and not even remembered, who will we hate then? What cause will keep us going? * If all that is sacred is to be mocked as an outdated, silly notion, than so is the sacred nature of human life. The third world ends in Auschwitz, and that Reiff does mention explicitly.
I would recommend this book, but only if you really mean to dedicate yourself to understanding it. ...more
This is my last library book for the foreseeable future. The good news is, this book would have made its way into my trunk of books to be stranded on This is my last library book for the foreseeable future. The good news is, this book would have made its way into my trunk of books to be stranded on a desert island with. Dietrich von Hildebrand is one of the greatest moral philosophers of the last few centuries. This is the way to view life; this is the way to live life; this is why I am a Catholic. This faith explains our situation. We are neither nothing nor gods, the mistaken beliefs of our time, but fallen creatures loved by God who are called to worship Him. Our liturgy exists to worship God, and while we gain so much by participating in the liturgy, we err by making our gains the primary purpose. Our sins are forgiven in confession, but what is that if it isn't employed to glorify God? We receive graces in the Eucharist, but of what use are they if we don't glorify God?
And if we are to glorify God, we must change. We cannot glorify God and despise our neighbor He died for out of love. We cannot glorify God and be unwilling to sacrifice for Him. We cannot glorify God and insist on our own place of honor, of wealth, of comfort. We cannot even go to Heaven for our own sake, for what would Heaven be without God? These effects are wonderful indeed, but if we were to worship God for the effects, we would be in the very grave danger of putting our own selves at the center of our world, ironically negating the very thing we strive for. We must love God for no other reason than because we love Him.
To love anything for any reason other than the good of the beloved would not be love at all.
I may post my notes later, but I wish I could do justice to this book in my review. I can't. It is such a beautiful way to live, and I could only wish to live it better to glorify Him who has given me so much despite how foolish I had been with some of His gifts and downright evil with others. Our liturgy, especially the more traditional forms, are the highest expressions of this life, where everything is put into its true perspective in a myriad of different forms but all for the same purpose:
Gloria in excelsis Deo et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Laudamus te, benedicimus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam, Domine Deus, Rex caelestis, Deus Pater omnipotens. Domine Fili unigenite, Iesu Christe, Domine Deus, Agnus Dei, Filius Patris, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis; qui tollis peccata mundi, suscipe deprecationem nostram. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris, miserere nobis. Quoniam tu solus Sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus Altissimus, Iesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu: in gloria Dei Patris. Amen....more
The introduction compares this book to Imitation of Christ. To say that is a bold claim is an understatement, but incredibly, that claim may not have The introduction compares this book to Imitation of Christ. To say that is a bold claim is an understatement, but incredibly, that claim may not have been bold enough. It's better. Kempis warns us of the pitfalls that ravage this world, but von Hildebrand balances his sharp incites into human frailty with the constant refrain of a Love that wishes to raise us to be something more than we are. The Christian virtues are all linked to each other; to possess one is to possess them all, and to be deficient in one is to be deficient in all. To know that God is real is to desire a serious change in who we are, fallen creatures in need of some serious help; this implies a simplicity in purpose and a sense of humility; one must trust God even (and especially) when we fail in our purpose and express true contrition; being those sad creatures we are, we must constantly refer back to God in prayer and recollection, constantly seeking to free ourselves of the automatism of our weak nature. That idea of automatism really struck me as important given the world of Twitter we exist in. Values exist objectively and exist in a hierarchy with each other; we are called upon to both recognize and respond to these values. von Hildebrand describes the true nature of terms we take for granted, like justice and humility and freedom, going into detail examining common errors regarding these important ideas and why those errors both flourish and harm us. This is one of the best books on human nature I have ever read and I seriously cannot think of a better philosopher who lived during the 20th Century. There is so much sugary "Christian" garbage out there, but here one finds a hearty meal for the mind. It also makes a wonderful devotional work. I read maybe 10 pages a day and did my best to actually live it.
What a beautiful way to see the world. What a beautiful way to live. This is the Catholic faith that I love. A million horrible things are out there about this faith, some true, some false, some more true than we even know, but none of them undo the true teachings that this book illuminates, and those truths are worth living for and worth living by.
My review simply doesn't do it justice. I'll reread this book. ...more
It seems sadly fitting that I would only get to reading this classic of Stoic philosophy in the immediate aftermath of the APA declaring stoic behavioIt seems sadly fitting that I would only get to reading this classic of Stoic philosophy in the immediate aftermath of the APA declaring stoic behavior a psychological problem. This book is outstanding, and those who wish to preserve the intellectual fight against postmodernity could do much worse than picking up Cicero.
Do I agree with everything Cicero writes? No. I find the same problem I had during my agnostic days: why is it better to be the tyrant's victim rather than the tyrant if we are not held accountable for our actions? Yes, I fully agree with the Platonic answer that tyrants are rarely happy, and I love the Sword of Damocles analogy, but arguing that man can find happiness in crucifixion is a tough sell. Yes, there is suicide (as Cicero explicitly notes), and yes, we don't suffer then, but the Good I imagine must be more than this. St. Augustine, himself a student of Cicero's works, answers the question best by acknowledging the supernatural good, because frankly, the natural good is insufficient due to our mortality.
That all said, Cicero has a great deal of useful things to say about the natural good which our society has foolishly tossed by the wayside. It is no accident I turn to Cicero; his times remind me of ours. He could no more stop the fall of his beloved commonwealth than St. Augustine could stop the Vandals from sacking Hippo. While the latter has a better view of a greater Good, Cicero understands our duty not to heap more fuel on the funeral pyre of our civilization. ...more
This book has two parts, and I read the first one. Manent is interesting and erudite; he made Montesquieu interesting, which I didn't even know was leThis book has two parts, and I read the first one. Manent is interesting and erudite; he made Montesquieu interesting, which I didn't even know was legal. The shift in the meaning of "virtue" is quite important. His notes on Sociology were good and largely in line with what I've thought of the social "sciences" for some time. The last chapter of the first part, on Adam Smith, was again enlightening, especially since I have not read Smith yet.
This is not an easy read, obviously. I truly wish I had gotten to it sooner in life, but right now is just not the time. January 2021: I'm checking the news to see if riots are coming to a town near me and then trying to understand the distinction between the term "invisible hand" in Smith's two works. I just can't focus on it properly. Someday I hope I can get back to this book, but right now it feels like the RMBK Reactor User's Manual in my hands ten seconds before Chernobyl went bust. "Oh shoot, guys, can you give me a couple of hours? Based on what I'm seeing here, we might have made a serious mis*BOOM*"...more
Second reading: I recommend reading this with Chesterton's book. For poor mortals like me, rereading is essential in grasping the thought of St. ThomaSecond reading: I recommend reading this with Chesterton's book. For poor mortals like me, rereading is essential in grasping the thought of St. Thomas. Fortunately Pieper writes well and his topic is interesting, so rereading was a joy!
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This is a nifty little book. Perhaps I read too many thousand pagers last year, but I certainly now appreciate nifty little books.
If Chesterton sketched the man of St. Thomas Aquinas better than anyone else, Pieper might lay claim to the best sketch of the milieu he walked in. The Christian world has tipped a bit too much towards the Platonic (some would mistakenly say a Paulist/Augustinian) conception against the physical world. It now faces a challenge from the newly rediscovered Aristotle that this world is in and of itself worthy of study, a thing that is good. St. Thomas, like Odysseus, strings together the bow of knowledge by combining the Platonic element of Revelation with the Aristotelian notion of Philosophy.
There are many interesting topics one can learn about reading this book, such as the nature of medieval universities, the controversies of the day, or the fact that St. Thomas was able to dictate four books to four different scribes simultaneously, but there are two I wish to highlight in particular.
The first is St. Thomas' "polemical" works. I should, and should not, place quotation marks around that word. On the one hand, these works are directed against errors, and so cannot be anything but argumentative in nature. On the other, St. Thomas so calmly and so accurately states the positions of his opponents that many have assumed they were the opinions of Thomas himself until they have read on to his refutations! There is something to be said in this: one needs to give an opposing viewpoint its strongest possible interpretation before looking for flaws. Apparently, St. Thomas would not even let his students respond to an argument until they could state it accurately in their own words. There is a matter of respect and of humility in this manner of debate, that the other person does have something valuable to say, that they are seeing something that requires a response. I know that I have acted accordingly sometimes, and sometimes not so much, and there is no question which conversations were not just worth my time, but also enjoyable. If only I could be more consistent!
The second point, which would almost certainly come as a surprise to anyone who has glanced at his Summa Theologiae, is that St. Thomas was not an advocate for closed, definite systems. He loved the world too much and understand human limitations too well to believe any system of philosophy ever devised by mankind would be complete. Philosophy and theology go hand in hand; the one studies the world, the other the word of God, and these things constantly interact. They need each other. One could imagine St. Thomas gleefully accepting the inputs of modern science as he updates his understanding of the world, which is of course a gift from God. To be able to love the gift, but the gift giver more...there is something St. Thomas, St. Augustine, and probably every Saint has been able to do.
Again, a nifty, well-written little read. Absolutely recommended....more
Useful overview of Ockham and whetted my curiosity about Francis Suarez's impact on political philosophy. Metaphysics just doesn't seem to be my thingUseful overview of Ockham and whetted my curiosity about Francis Suarez's impact on political philosophy. Metaphysics just doesn't seem to be my thing, though. ...more
I bought this book mostly as a prep for his second volume on the likes of Sts. Augustine, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, and it fit the bill wonderfI bought this book mostly as a prep for his second volume on the likes of Sts. Augustine, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas, and it fit the bill wonderfully. Greek philosophy has always been a comfort to me during the winter months, and Copleston provides an engaging and insightful history of Greek philosophic thought over its long history. Pre-Socratic thought wondered at the distinction between things that were different but somehow the same, Plato and Aristotle develop beautiful theories dividing the world between the material and the immaterial, while the post-Aristotelian thought began to take the religious needs of mankind into consideration. Ultimately, this set up a beautifully prepared intellectual field for a new religion, Christianity, which while different from the Platonic tradition was able to use their terminology and fields of study to explain and justify its theology.
Highly recommended. Copleston has a Catholic agenda in the sense that he means to prepare his seminarians for intellectual combat, and so there are interesting asides about how these ideas fit within the Catholic worldview, but his overview of these philosophers is a spot-on honest telling of their beliefs and how they developed historically....more
I've always been interested in the question of morality and how we can know what morality is. During the summer, I read Alasdair MacIntyre's After VirI've always been interested in the question of morality and how we can know what morality is. During the summer, I read Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue and found it impressive. He, like Nietzsche, quickly dispatches the Enlightenment idea that we can base morality on reason or logic. Every Enlightenment attempt to do this eventually boils down to "this is what that particular philosopher liked best." MacIntyre resurrects Aristotle, who he (probably rightly) believes was dismissed rather than defeated by the Enlightenment, for a battle royale with Nietzsche.
So, when I saw a cheap copy of Genealogy, I figured what the heck. I read Zarathustra ages ago, remember it being a convoluted mess about creating our own world and willing to power, but supposedly this book would be better structured for rational creatures, so I gave it a shot.
Nope. Well, OK, this book has more clarity than his other books, but that doesn't mean this book is clear by most standards. Every here and there, Nietzsche calms down and says interesting things (origin and difference between good/bad and good/evil, punishment as a form of debt payment), but then he begins ranting again. I hate to say it, but after I completed the first two essays and compared my notes on his non-ranting part to the Wikipedia article on this book, I found them similar enough to just use that for the third section. I wasn't going to waste my time after Mr. Religion Is Nonsense went full prophet and promised us the arrival of his ubermensch.
MacIntyre, God bless him, was able to strain the lunatic out of his actual interesting ideas. Those ideas primarily consist of criticism of the last man; Nietzsche's attempts to build a philosophy (the ubermensch, the will to power, eternal return) have no metaphysical ground to stand upon. The whole time, I'm wondering what difference it makes if we have the "master morality" or the "slave morality" is both go nowhere but the grave. If the world is meaningless (as a quick glance at the end of the third essay would imply), then it doesn't particularly matter which morality rules, right? Or if the ubermensch arrives?
The last person on Earth who should be the spokesmen for "religion makes people hate themselves" should probably be Nietzsche. St. Augustine's Confessions come off with a beautiful and positive outlook, whereas Nietzsche comes off as an angry, angry person whose ideal world doesn't sound very ideal to me. ...more
Chesterton was exactly what I needed to read right now. The book is beautiful and simple, and consists of two main arguments: the material, atheistic Chesterton was exactly what I needed to read right now. The book is beautiful and simple, and consists of two main arguments: the material, atheistic explanation of the world does not account very well for the rise of the self-conscious animal, nor does it explain the extraordinary success of the Catholic faith.
His note on Rome should either be alarming or comforting, depending on how you want to view the world. Rome and its household gods triumphed over the dark forces of Carthage and their Baal worship, uniting the Mediterranean into a superculture and mixing every form of pagan mythology and philosophy into life. Rome was a pinnacle, a true triumph of Mankind...but it was not enough. Malaise set in; our best was not sufficient. One can hardly look around today and not see an eerie resemblance. We have everything, or about as much everything as would be imaginable to any person who ever lived, and yet we are distinctly unfulfilled. Nobody believed the mythologies, and the philosophies could answer the how but never the why. "Men seek stranger sins or more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded senses...They are walking in their sleep and try to wake themselves up with nightmares."
It was only then, when Man was shown his full limit and found it unsatisfactory, did God appear. And He has not left, despite his religion dying a half dozen deaths (The Five Deaths of the Faith is an especially worthwhile chapter to read during our own crisis). But the Catholic Faith will not stay dead. It survived the tumble of Rome and the anarchy of the Dark Ages; it survived the schism of Luther; it survived the guillotine of Robespierre and the atheism of the 20th Century; it will survive the death of old age and indifference that challenges us today, as it did for St. Benedict and St. Francis. But no, "survived" is not the right word. The faith died, and it was resurrected. And those resurrections are about as unlikely in the atheistic story as the resurrection of a man.
A beautiful book. Highly recommended for any Christian or honestly searching Pagan out there. ...more
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