"For surely anyone's love will grow feebler and cooler towards one whom, as he supposes, he will have to leave, whose truth and wisdom he will have to reject, and that after he has come to the full knowledge of them, according to his capacity, in the perfection of felicity. No one can love a human friend with loyalty if he knows that in the future he will be his enemy" (City of God, Book XII, Chapter 21).

The last couple of weeks, I've been discussing happiness as it relates to the good, and the good as it relates to love. This week, I would like to discuss love is it relates to God. So far, I've given a basic definition for happiness—namely that our lives are only truly happy if we spend them in pursuit of the Good, meaning that we pursue our greatest goods first and our other lesser goods only when these do not hinder our pursuit of the greater goods. Moreover, to love somebody means to desire that person's greatest happiness, which in turn means desiring that that person pursue and acquire or attain his highest goods. As for these goods, the highest goods of man are to know (or understand) and to love, but the greatest, perfect, and supreme Good is God. In other words, man should aspire to final union with God, even though this is achieved only after this life; but he should also attempt to love others, and to pursue not only knowledge about God, but also the so-called "secular" knowledge (e.g. Natural philosophy, science, etc).

Saint Anselm, in formulating his famous ontological argument, noted that God is defined as "that than which greater cannot be thought" ("GCNBT"). As I mentioned in the first part of this series,
In other words, this is what (or Who) God is, by definition (and regardless of whether or not St Anselm's proof itself holds), and it can be nicely combined with Divine Simplicity (the two seem to be naturally intertwined in the thought of St Augustine, for example), which is a tenet of Classical Theism and of the Catholic Faith. In other words, when a faithful Catholic refers to God, he is referring to GCNBT, whether or not St Anselm's argument works. In other words, whether He exists or not, God is the greatest Good of which we can conceive.

God is very merciful, and He effectively looks for "excuses" to extend His mercy wherever it will be accepted. Thus, we can believe not only in the doctrine of ignorance (and particularly invincible ignorance), but also that His mercy extends to the invincibly ignorant in such a way that they may be saved from eternal damnation. This salvation of the ignorant may extend to infidels and infants alike--and perhaps even to a few misguided or even (possibly) disobedient Catholics--but it should not be taken for granted.

Hell is a very real place, and real people do choose to go there. That Hell exists can be proved from the Bible: Matthew 5:29; 8:12; 10:28; 13:42; 25:41, 46; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Revelation 21:8, etc. It is populated by those who have chosen to reject God and His Love. Some choose to reject (or indeed to blaspheme) God directly, but others take a more indirect route: obstinacy in sin, rejection of known truths, final impenitence. Thus, while God's mercy to the invincibly ignorant may give us hope for each (that is, any) individual person, it would be presumptuous to contend that these things mean that every person shall be saved.

Note: To participate in the "study" pillar of Dominican life, the Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati (North Austin/Round Rock) chapter of Lay Dominicans in the Southern (US) Province is currently reading The Dominican Tradition: Spirituality in History one chapter at a time, with one member presenting a reflection of the chapter during the meeting. This last meeting was my turn to present, and the chapter was on Saint Thomas Aquinas. Here then is my reflection.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was quite possibly the greatest thinker who ever lived. There are few philosophers either inside of Christianity or outside of it who can claim to rival the breadth or depth of his intellect. He came into the world during one of the more perilous and more tumultuous times of the Church--though I supposed that it could be argued that there have been few if any ages which were not perilous, tumultuous, or in general fraught with challenges to the Faith.

To be a Christian is to live out of a center of being defined by faith. Faith is the credo found in the will of the Christian, the fundamental “I believe” that connects him to the content of doctrine, which is the historical reality of the Crucified and Resurrected Christ. Faith brings the Christian into a tangible, living encounter and relationship with Christ which entirely transforms one’s life.

Note: This reflection was originally presented by my wife and I jointly at our lay Dominican Chapter’s monthly meeting. I have endeavored to accurately transcribe this reflection from my notes and hers—we gave the reflection jointly and in parts.
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During the course of preparing this reflection concerning Saint Dominic’s Nine Ways of Prayer, one of the first things which stands out to us in contemplating Saint Dominic’s Nine Ways of Prayer is the bodily nature of these prayers. Many of these prayers involved specific positions and postures of his body—indeed, only the last two do not. It is easy to look at this in a merely historical light—to frame these postures in terms of the heresy against which Saint Dominic was striving. After all, what better way to fight a Neo-Manichaen heresy which rejects all material things in general and the body in particular, than to involve the body in the naturally spiritual exercise of prayer. In a sense, the saint was literally fighting against this heresy through his prayers.

On the other hand, the involvement of the body in prayer is not exactly a new phenomenon. There is plenty of evidence of this found as early as the Old Testament—consider, for example, the story of Moses’ praying for the victory of the Israelites with his arms outstretched. Indeed, the notion should not even seem foreign to us today, as we employ a great many of simple (and often not-so-simple) bodily motions during the celebration of the Mass: stand up, cross yourself, sit down, kneel, bow—and that’s just the part played by the congregation.

There is more to the Nine Ways than merely the incorporation of the body—and, since the spirit is already present, therefore the whole person is included—than merely to fight the heresy of the day. The Cathar aren’t quite vanished, though Albigensianism may largely seem a heresy of the past and they no longer threaten the wide swaths of southern Europe that they once did. Yet, Saint Dominic’s Nine Ways can still speak to us today. As with the Scriptures, the Nine Ways are quite rich with symbolism. Indeed, all four general levels of interpretation which can be applied to the Scriptures can also to some extent be applied to the Nine Ways: literal, figurative, metaphorical (metaphysical) and allegorical (moral). When this is done, we see that the Nine Ways adumbrate salvation history itself—from Creation and Fall to Christ’s coming and the foundation of His Church, and indeed even to the eschatology of the afterlife. They moreover contain a sort of examination of conscience when read allegorically.

Note: This is more of a speculative post. I have endeavored to make it consistent with the teachings of the Church, as far as they go. However, it goes beyond what is taught and into the real of speculation. All of my posts concerning faith, morality, theology, etc are subject to the magisterium of the Church, and through said magisterium to my local bishop, and should be subordinate to the teachings thereof, even if said bishop has better things to do than to read my blog and offer his imprimatur. Since this is a more speculative post, I think that it is especially important to re-iterate that point. I have now republished this post with an addendum to address the objection half-heartedly made in my com boxes.

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Yesterday morning I was conversing with my friend, Mr Andrew Elster, during our weekly work-out session (and beyond into breakfast). He mentioned talking to a colleague from work about infants, Baptism, and salvation. His colleague's position was something along the lines of "Unbaptized infants are damned to hell, since they are as guilty of Original Sin as anybody else, but have not had the time to develop faith nor the grace which comes from baptism." This opinion--or something like it--is actually fairly widespread, both amongst Catholics and Protestants; it is also the cause of much consternation amongst said groups, for an infant who dies before baptism (to say nothing of the unborn murdered in the womb) is now condemned to hell through no fault of his own, but rather through Adam. An extension of this can be applied to those who are outside the Church, particularly those who lived before Christ and those who have never heard the Gospel message.

Note: This is the second of a set of Lenten reflections on the heresies which have fought against and been fought by the Church. The first one can be read here

“For such false apostles are deceitful workmen, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no wonder: for Satan himself transformeth himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers be transformed as the ministers of justice, whose end shall be according to their works” ( 2 Corinthians 11:13-15)

Saint Paul warned the early Christian community in Corinth to be on guard against the wiles of the devil. Though many signs and miracles would be performed in the name of Christ, so too would there be signs performed which were not in His name. Such signs could seem to be under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to point those who saw them to God; yet the Devil himself was once an angel of light, and so he can disguise himself as such. Similarly can he work some types of miracle through those who follow him, in order to dupe the faithful and lure them away from the Faith.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it....And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:1-5, 14).

If Pride is the first sin, then Gnosticism was the first rebellion. We have little record of that fateful spiritual battle waged in the heavens in the dawn before time; we know nothing more than what has been revealed, and that is itself scarce. We know that one of the greatest amongst the angels--Lucifer, the bearer of light--was a proud creature who rebelled against his Creator. We know that the immediate result of this rebellion is that he and the other traitorous angels were cast out of heaven, out of the presence of God. Lucifer could not rule heaven, but would be made instead to govern hell.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an unmovable object? Or more properly phrased, what happens when an unstoppable object collides with an unmovable object? This question seems like a bit of a logical stumper, until one realizes that it is sheer nonsense. An unmovable object and an unstoppable force cannot simultaneously exist. Within in the bounds of the laws of physics and of mathematics, neither object can exist, for an unmovable object would necessitate an infinite amount of inertia, and thus infinite mass; and an unstoppable object must have an infinite amount of momentum, which is possible only if the object has infinite mass or is traveling with a speed of c, that is, at the same speed as light traveling in a vacuum.

A few days ago, I wrote a brief article about a difference of approach between Catholics and Protestants as concerns the practice of prayer. In particular, both Catholics and Protestants share much in common in their prayer styles, with this exception: that Catholics have, in addition to the many forms of prayer practiced by most Protestants, an additional form of prayer which is meditative in nature, and which is generally a form of adoration. Why does this difference exist? Why do Catholics so often have "additions" to the articles and practices of Protestant faith? It is more proper to ask why Protestants discarded so many articles and practices of the Catholic Faith. In any event, it always seems like Catholics meet the Protestant "either/or" with their own counterproposal: "both/and."