tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26841650010070426502024-03-11T01:48:24.448-07:00Philosophical MusingsIvo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.comBlogger478125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-55735669796403661032024-03-11T01:19:00.000-07:002024-03-11T01:47:51.376-07:00Malkovsky on the Personhood of Sankara's para brahman<p><b>Sankara's possibile antecedents</b>: Patanjala yoga (Hacker); bhedabheda(Hajime Nakamura), perhaps under the influence of the Gaudapadiya-karika (Ingalls). Vaisnavism (Hacker; Nakamura; W.G. Neevel; Jacqueline Hirst; Malkovsky; Sengaku Mayeda). (542-544)</p><p>The distinction between a higher and lower brahman is central of Sankara. (545)</p><p>The majority of scholars - both nondualists and theists - believe that his para brahman is impersonal. The implication is that the God of the theists - whether Hindu or not - is an inferior deity. The bhaktas could never accept this. Georges Thibaut much preferred Ramanuja's conception. (546)</p><p>A small group regards the para brahman as personal - concluding either from philosophical considerations of 'person' (chiefly De Smet) or from exegesis (chiefly Hacker). (547)</p><p>Of course, Sankara does not - could not - take up the question of brahman's personhood. (547)</p><p>Hacker holds that Sankara is an illusionist, but also shows that most often S identifies isvara with para brahman. (553-555) A proper understanding of the Absolute need not exclude its being personal. (555)</p><p>D.M. Datta: one of the strongest affirmations of realism in Sankara. (555) See also Saccidanandendra Sarasvati as cited by Karl Potter. (556n51)</p><p>Julius Lipner: The Advaitic absolute is trans-personal rather than impersonal. (561)</p><p>De Smet on the Trinity: see "Light from the Christian <i>Jnana-Karma-Bhakti-Samuccaya</i>" in <i>Religious Consciousness and Life-Worlds</i>, ed. T.S. Rukmani (New Delhi: Indus Publ. Co., 1988) 81. (561n75)</p><p>Mahadevan. (562)</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-41188982878049152132023-11-20T07:35:00.000-08:002023-11-20T07:35:28.566-08:00Grace and freedom, growth into Christ<p>PERPETUALS COURSE, ODXEL, 2004</p><p><br /></p><p>D’Mello Kimrold</p><p>Fernandes Simao</p><p>Hadke Sudhir</p><p>Sankul Cedrick</p><p>Teixeira Banzelao</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Growth into Christ </b></p><p><br /></p><p>Spontaneity and autonomy. The drifter and the chooser. Life has brought you up to this point. Now is the moment to make the definitive choice. Existenz: deciding what to make of oneself. High choice, deliberate decision about one’s future. Without total clarity, without absolute guarantees, except faith in the one who has called, and who is faithful. </p><p><br /></p><p>Clear convictions. The virtue of faith. Intellectual conversion, and the supernatural virtue of faith: submission to what is greater than the human mind. But: no one can come to the Father unless he is drawn by me. Faith as gift. </p><p><br /></p><p>Clear convictions about God, about Jesus Christ, about the Church, about religious life. [Cyril Desbruslais describing the usual religious trajectory of his thinking young people: first they reject God; then they learn to accept God, but not Jesus Christ; then they learn to accept Jesus as man, but not as God; eventually they learn to accept Jesus as God and man, but reject the Church; the most difficult stage is for them to learn to accept Jesus Christ in the Church.]</p><p><br /></p><p>You are about to begin the study of theology. You are not entering theology with blank minds, tabulae rasae. You are entering as men of sound faith. Your study of theology is for the purpose of being able to give an account of your faith (1 Pet 3:15). Fides quaerens intellectum: faith seeking understanding. Crede ut intelligas: believe that you might understand. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the four years to come, the study of theology will be your principal preoccupation. It will form therefore part of your spiritual growth, as a religious, as a candidate to the priesthood. Your commitment to study should form part of your daily examen of conscience, your fortnightly examen for the sacrament of reconciliation, your friendly chat, your spiritual direction. “For you I study…” There is no excuse for a Salesian priest candidate of today: he has to put his best energies into study. For he is called to be an educator and evangelizer. He is sent to young people, to all those who collaborate with him in the work for young people, to people of the working classes, to people as yet untouched by the gospel. This is a tall order. You will require all your resources, not least a sound study of sound theology. Otherwise you will avoid and evade the responsibility of teaching, preaching, animating, ruling. When the people of God ask for bread, you will give them stones. </p><p><br /></p><p>Read Pastores Dabo Vobis on the intellectual preparation for the priesthood. Read also Vita Consecrata. Read our constitutions and our other documents. We cannot even work for the poorest of the poor with empty heads. </p><p><br /></p><p>So let us not despise study, and the study of theology. Let us not give in to despising remarks about commitment to study. I do not hesitate to use the word sin here: you will be sinning, and sinning grievously against both God and your neighbour. You will be betraying your own word, that you will utter at your perpetual profession: to give of my best and all I have to those to whom I shall be sent. You will demoralize your companions. You will contribute to the decline of the quality of Salesian and religious and Christian life. You will be giving stones not bread to your young people. Don’t forget, Don Bosco spent, at the advice of his confessor and spiritual director, three years in the further study of theology. The usual extra years were two, but Don Bosco was given three. He never regretted this. During these three years, his vocation took concrete shape, and he learnt to be a priest. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Clear convictions about Jesus Christ</b></p><p><br /></p><p>The real challenge of RL today is that of restoring Christ to RL, and RL to Christ. This is one thing we cannot take for granted. To adhere ever more closely to JC is the very center of RL. RL is based on JC. Without JC, or with shaky convictions about JC, you are shaking the very foundations of RL. </p><p><br /></p><p>Is there no place for doubts? Newman: one thousand difficulties do not make a single doubt. ‘Difficulties’ occur within the horizon of faith. The two ways of asking questions, cf. the Jewish Passover ritual. Ask, by all means; inquire; be open; but from within the horizon of faith. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Contemplating Christ from a Salesian standpoint</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Is there a Salesian Christology? Yes. We salesians are sensitive to certain aspects of Christ. </p><p><br /></p><p>We begin by noting that the contemplation of the face of Christ must be, as it is for all religious, our first passion and concern. C 34: our highest knowledge is to know Jesus Christ, and our greatest delight is to reveal to all people the unfathomable riches of his mystery.</p><p><br /></p><p>What does contemplating Christ mean? It means knowing him deeply, loving him more faithfully, following him more radically. Christology is not the fruit merely of knowledge, but also of love and of imitation. </p><p><br /></p><p>We note that in presenting Jesus to his boys and to the people, DB used to emphasize especially the mystical dimension: the inexhaustible kindness of the Master, his mercy, his willingness to forgive. In the lives that he wrote, he highlights friendship with Jesus. This is the front of the mantle, in the dream of 10 diamonds. </p><p><br /></p><p>In presenting Jesus to his Salesians, DB used to emphasize instead the ascetical dimension: the following and imitation of Christ in the consecrated life and through the counsels. However, we must be clear that this following and imitation is not painful renunciation but rather a free and joyful offering; not a list of things to be done, but a total consecration. This is the back of the mantle in the dream of 10 diamonds. These are the hidden thorns which no one sees, in the dream of the pergola of roses. </p><p><br /></p><p>We find the Salesian Christology most especially in C 11. </p><p><br /></p><p>Gratitude to the Father. Gratitude was one of the most outstanding sentiments in the human personality of DB. He wanted to pass this on in the highest degree to his sons. Mamma Margaret played an extremely important role in the development of this attitude in DB, especially through her strong sense of divine providence. We remember the strong things DB used to say about grumbling and discontentment among his boys. The positive side of this was the invitation to see life as gift. </p><p><br /></p><p>For the gift of a divine vocation given to all. DB was convinced that everyone has been given a divine vocation. He was convinced that in every situation, despite all limitations, deficiencies and sin, every individual is a child of God, an image of God, called to his friendship and to eternal life. This conviction gave rise in DB to hope. He was convinced that in every youngster there was a spark of goodness. More importantly, his life and his prayer was filled with gratitude for this gift of the divine vocation given to all. </p><p><br /></p><p>Predilection for the poor and the little ones. There is no need to demonstrate or belabour this. But we do need to note that this predilection stems not only from the generosity of DB’s heart, but from a God-given mission. DB’s attitude in front of Marchioness Barolo is normative in this regard: you have the money and will have no difficulty in finding priests for your institutions; but my poor youngsters have no one. The RM insists that, even though we speak today of new forms of poverty, we give first priority to those who are socially and economically poor. </p><p><br /></p><p>Zeal in preaching, healing, saving. Zeal in preaching: for DB this was so important, that it was his main request on the day of his first Mass. Also, he learnt early in life the need to reach out to the people, to speak their language, to be simple rather than to seek to impress. Zeal in preaching is closely connected to ‘reason’ in the trinomial reason, religion and loving kindness. Healing: those to whom we are sent are sick because they have been abandoned in various ways. Vecchi: all this has led us to rethink the concept of prevention: a first prevention, which is basic; a second prevention, which consists of preventing the ultimate ruin of those already on an evil path; a third prevention, which checks the worst of the evil consequences. Again, on the topic of healing, we must remember that Jesus’ miracles are directed towards the salvation of the whole person. DB seeks the total well-being of his youngsters. Saving: the climax is salvation. Don Rua reminds us: he took no step, said no word, took up no taswk that was not directed to the salvation of the young. Truly, the only concern of his heart was for souls. If we forget that the ultimate purpose of Salesian work is salvation, we fall into a reductionism which betrays the preventive system. </p><p><br /></p><p>Under the urgency of the coming kingdom. God’s kingdom is a dominion characterized not by domination but by fatherhood. We are not slaves or servants in the kingdom; we are sons and daughters. The coming of the kingdom is good news: it is a gift and work of God calling for human collaboration, not something we have to achieve on our own. Therefore urgency, but a hopefilled and joyful urgency. </p><p><br /></p><p>The attitude of the Good Shepherd who wins hearts by gentleness and self-giving. The Salesian spirit has its model and source in the heart of Christ (C 11). The Spirit formed in DB the heart of a father and teacher, capable of total self-giving (C 1). The heart of the Salesian spirit is pastoral charity (C 10), the charity of the Good Shepherd, who conquers hearts with meekness and self-giving (C 11). As he works for the salvation of the young, the Salesian experiences the fatherhood of God, and the divine dimension of his activity: apart from me you can do nothing (C 12). From the active presence of the Spirit we draw energy for our fidelity and strength for our hope (C 1). There will always be situations and confreres and boys that frustrate us. Remember DB’s advice: trust and pray rather than give long sermons or talks which hurt you and do no good to those who hear them. Resist the temptation to play God. Allow God to work. These are true words, not empty promises. God will form in us, as he formed in DB, hearts of fathers and teachers. </p><p><br /></p><p>Also: like the Lord who calls each sheep by name, DB achieved to an exceptional degree this personal knowledge of his boys. It is a question here not only of the pastoral love called agape but also of the more intimate kind of love called philia. </p><p><br /></p><p>Total self-giving: Jesus gave his life for his sheep. DB: for you I study, for you I work, for you I live, for you I am ready even to give my life. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Clear convictions about religious life</b></p><p><br /></p><p>Leslie D’Souza, ex-Salesian, course for rectors. Comes to meet the core team of the province. What would you like me to do? – We told him various things. – Where do you get your energy from? – I said, from God revealed in Jesus Christ and known through the Church. – Somebody else said: Being calm; composed; self-aware; etc. – Leslie: those are effects; and in that, you are no different from anyone else. What is it that makes you different? What are your specifics?</p><p><br /></p><p>Leslie and others like him force us to get clear about certain basics. </p><p><br /></p><p>First, RL is more than a spirituality. It is more than an interest in life, or even a commitment to life, or to the inner dimension of reality, or to the ultimate, or to the transcendent. </p><p><br /></p><p>The postmodern ethos has led some to try to understand RL in a way that circumvents its specifically Christian character. </p><p><br /></p><p>This approach is theologically incoherent.</p><p>It is also practically self-destructive. </p><p><br /></p><p>The challenge of postmodernity can be negotiated in a different way: a way which affirms the specificity of Christianity, and at the same time allows RL to live in open dialogue and shared commitment with contemporaries. </p><p><br /></p><p>In the second place, RL is not merely a social organization founded for or around a project or a task. </p><p><br /></p><p>It is not merely a lifestyle.</p><p><br /></p><p>It is a life. It is a total and unreserved gift of one’s whole being, to the exclusion of any and all other primary commitments. (In this respect it parallels marriage.)</p><p><br /></p><p>RL as a life is based on what is specific to the Christian faith. </p><p><br /></p><p>So what is specific to Christianity?</p><p><br /></p><p>The answer is the Resurrection. </p><p><br /></p><p>All religions originate, not in a constructed theory, but in a powerful religious experience. All religions must say something coherent and meaningful about death. </p><p><br /></p><p>The revelatory experience provides a framework, a vision of the whole of reality. Such a vision is not open to revision of its core commitments. One cannot be a little bit Christian or moderately Muslim, any more than one can be a little bit pregnant or relatively human. Believing is not an arbitrary choice. It is a response to what one perceives as true. </p><p><br /></p><p>The resurrection of Jesus is both the originating and non-negotiable experience at the heart of Christianity, which grounds the entire Christian vision of reality, and a response to the question of death. </p><p><br /></p><p>RL is based on the resurrection of Jesus. </p><p><br /></p><p>All authentic Christian life is participation in the resurrection of Jesus. The disciples claimed in fact to be the post-Easter body of Jesus in the world, the instrument of his presence in the world, just as our natural bodies are the instrument of our presence in the world. </p><p><br /></p><p>So: we are not merely a group of like-minded people living and working together for a better world with an occasional reference to Jesus. </p><p>Our life is his life in the world.</p><p>Our activity is suffused with his real and living presence and power. </p><p>Our project is his project, the Reign of God. </p><p>We have chosen to make this the exclusive and primary commitment of our lives. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>Practical effects</b></p><p><br /></p><p>1. Christian prayer is not merely an exercise in awareness, a practice of mindfulness, a centering of psychic energy, practices of ego-transcendence, or a merging with nature. It is clearly and unashamedly personal. It is a relationship with a person, a relationship which gradually becomes the center and effective motivation of our lives. </p><p><br /></p><p>Christian prayer is becoming who, by baptism, we already are: namely, the body of Christ, his living and active presence in the world. </p><p><br /></p><p>If this relationship to God in prayer is not nurtured continuously, if one is not growing in one’s identity with Christ, one may be a good person and an effective agent of positive change, but RL has no particular meaning for us. </p><p><br /></p><p>2. Mission and ministry. Is there any real difference between what religious do, and what non-believers or people of other faiths do? And is Christian ministry better than other such work? </p><p><br /></p><p>There is a difference: Christian ministry is not something we have decided to do. It is a response to a call, and it is rooted in a sending, a mission. </p><p><br /></p><p>This mission may give rise to a plurality of ministries. Ministry is neither a job nor a career. That is why religious may retire from a job or a career, but never from ministry. Their ministry is participation in Jesus’ transformation of the world. It is ongoing revelation among our contemporaries of who God is, what he desires, and how he is at work transforming reality.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Conclusion</b>. None of the areas – faith, Christology, church, perpetual commitment, consecrated celibacy, community, prayer, ministry – can be handled separately. Either the whole project is deeply Christian, or the lifeform we call RL does not exist. </p><p><br /></p><p>The coherence of RL has to come from within. The RL can no longer be carried by habit, time-table, etc. It is religious themselves, their deep inner commitment, that have to carry the RL, and to make every aspect of it speak the reality of the divine human relationship at its heart. </p><p><br /></p><p>We can do this only if we believe that Jesus is indeed really alive, present, active within us and among us, and that our whole life is the medium and mediation of his presence and action in the world. </p><p><br /></p><p><b>The Process of Christian growth</b></p><p><br /></p><p>We have spoken already of the contemplation of the face of Christ, and of the adherence to Christ which is the very center of <span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>RL. </p><p><br /></p><p>We have spoken also of the explicitly and unavoidably personal dimension of Christian prayer: Christian prayer is becoming who by baptism we already are: the body of Christ, his living, active presence in the world. </p><p><br /></p><p>Let us speak here of Christian prayer from another angle, that of growth into prayer, which is really growth into Christ. </p><p><br /></p><p><i>The first stage: purification</i></p><p><br /></p><p>Grace and freedom. Some time or other you will come across spiritual authors (such as Carlos Valles) who tell you: stop trying too hard. You have no idea of the meaning of grace. It is not your effort that counts. It is God who works. So stop trying too hard. Let go, let God. Evasio in the philosophy of God class: if conversion is God’s work, then I am going to relax and just wait! You may even have been given such advice in the confessional: stop trying too hard. It is God’s work. Be patient. And you may have tried to be patient. But somehow, deep down there is the nagging suspicion. There must be some other way. There must be some other thing. </p><p><br /></p><p>Some of you might have encountered an older approach, the classic Jesuit approach, the masculine approach of agere contra: act against your inclinations, be strong, do it, put an end to all this shilly shallying, dilly dallying. Homines sunt voluntas. Will it! </p><p><br /></p><p>After many years of struggle with these feminine and masculine ways, I realized one day the connection: grace is already always given; God has already acted; he has already first loved us; so don’t wait, it has happened already, act. So both Bede Griffiths and Balaguer are correct. We are in a very deep sense ‘feminine’ before God. And yet we have to act. Simply because God has always already acted. He is always already acting. He never stops acting. My Father is always working, and he is working even now, says Jesus in the Gospel of John. </p><p><br /></p><p>So the very first thing about the purgative way, the way of purification, is to get clear about some basics. Believe that God is already acting in your life; call a spade a spade, and get to work. God is acting, and he is Love, so there is no need to get terrorized. But there is need to work and not to give up. “Has no one condemned you? Neither do i. Go and sin no more.” </p><p><br /></p><p>Natural and supernatural means. Our constitutions, following the tradition, speak of natural and supernatural means. The natural means are not to be neglected. Grace builds on nature, and both come from God. What are the natural means? Sufficient sleep and rest; exercise; and today, also all the helps that the human sciences can give. In a world affected by original sin, situations, histories and lives are not perfect. Each one of us will experience deep imperfection within us, deep down within us. Let us make use of whatever natural means God places on our paths. The Congregation has been abundant and generous in this regard. </p><p><br /></p><p>We know by now very well that, especially in the area of chastity, there is a great distinction to be drawn between objective sin and subjective responsibility. Masturbation, for example, is such a complex affair, with deep roots in one’s personal history, with a deep intertwining of psychological realities and personal responsibility. Here especially the human sciences can be of great utility: in the exploration of one’s personal history and make-up; in the building up of self-image, self-acceptance, self-esteem; etc. </p><p><br /></p><p>Sorrow. Let us presume however the absence or the overcoming of mitigating factors such as personal history and lack of self-esteem. Here is the normal situation, the standard situation. Perhaps this is a much neglected area. One such neglected element is that of sorrow for sins. When I hurt a friend or a parent or a companion, if I am truly sorry, I will not easily hurt them again. The same holds in our relationship with God: if I am truly sorry for my sins, if I truly detest them because they offend the infinite goodness of God, then I will with difficulty offend again. The problem is that most of the time </p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-13889026778469832482023-11-20T07:31:00.000-08:002023-11-20T07:31:30.123-08:00Grace and Freedom, letter to Joby<div>Rome, Feb 22, 1993</div><div><br /></div><div>Dear Joby,</div><div><br /></div><div>Jose has told me about your question, and I have seen the reply he has formulated for you. I have found it easier to put down, very roughly and imperfectly, some thoughts on my own, instead of adding to what Jose has written. One of your questions is, "God knows us from the womb. He knows our future and has planned our lives. So where does sin and punishment come in?" Let me just talk about three points here: human freedom, grace, and God's plan.</div><div><br /></div><div>Human freedom</div><div><br /></div><div>I begin by noting that we are talking in a christian context, in a context in which we take for granted the existence of God, and the fact that God is creator. If we did not, the problem of human freedom and God's causality would not of course have arisen in the first place. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now in order to talk about human freedom, we need to grasp certain prior notions. The first of these is that all created beings are dependent beings. Created beings depend on the Creator not only for the origin of their existence (creation) and for the continuity of their existence (conservation), but also in their very action. This is to say: no created being can act in total independence; its every action involves dependence on the Creator. </div><div><br /></div><div>This might seem strange, for once a being is created, why can it not act on its own? The problem might be envisaged in the following terms: fire is able to heat water; but if the fire is in the kitchen and the water is in the well, we are not going to get boiling water even if we wait for years. What then is needed? Well, the fire and the water must be brought together; there is needed some other agent who can bring fire and water in the proper relation where the action of heating can take place.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let us take a more general case, where no human agent is involved. The heat of the sun can melt ice; but the sun will not melt an iceberg unless either the iceberg is brought to the equator or else the sun is moved to the North Pole. </div><div><br /></div><div>From these two examples we might conclude that created causes need to be applied to their activity; unless they are thus applied, their natural action does not follow. In certain cases we can think of human beings as the agents that apply causes to their objects, but in the general case of the universe, which is an enormously complex set of created causes, this agent can only be God. (This is of course a terribly rapid way of arguing, but I content myself with this.)</div><div><br /></div><div>The point we are trying to make is that created causes are not primary causes; they are always secondary causes; the primary cause is God. </div><div><br /></div><div>The next point is to grasp that man, like all other created causes, is also always a secondary cause; the primary cause of his actions is God. But there is a difference: for other causes are not free, while man is free. Here the question arises, if man is a secondary cause, then, just like the sun which melts the iceberg, or the fire that heats the water, given the proper conditions his actions should follow. All that we need is that some agent (God) should bring about the proper conditions (just as in the case of the sun and the fire). Is then man really free? Or is his action not like the action of the sun and the fire?</div><div><br /></div><div>This calls for an analysis of human action; for when we think of freedom, we tend to oversimplify; we tend to think of it as merely the act of choice. Now human freedom involves at least (1) the capacity itself, which we might call the 'will'; (3) the orientation of the will, which we might call the 'willingness'; (2) the act of willing. (In addition there is the relationship of willing with knowing, but I will not enter into it here.) </div><div><br /></div><div>Let us take for granted that we have the capacity to perform free acts. Again, the actual act of willing should not cause difficulties. What we normally tend to overlook is the orientation of the will, the willingness. And yet this is a fact of our experience: many acts of willing accumulate into a habit, an orientation, or at least a tendency; the more I practise the guitar, the better a guitarist I become; the more I practise football, the better a footballer I become. Similarly, repeated good actions accumulate into good habits, and repeated bad actions accumulate into bad habits. Now what is to be noted is the effect of such habits: when I have become a good guitarist, I am able to play the guitar with ease and without difficulty; when I have acquired the 'habit of football', I enjoy playing football; similarly when I have acquired a good habit, I find it easy to perform good acts, and when I have acquired a bad habit, it is very easy to perform bad acts, and very difficult not to perform them. So our acts of willing are conditioned by our habits, our willingness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Grace and sin</div><div><br /></div><div>We have distinguished therefore the will, the willingness, and the act of willing. Let us now bring God into the picture. We say that God is the primary cause of all our acts; are we then really free? The answer is that God is not the direct cause of our acts of willing; rather, he works upon our willingness, our habitual orientation or tendency. God is constantly moving us to will the good; and that is what we call grace. </div><div><br /></div><div>But, you might say, does that not in the end come to the same thing? For once we have an orientation towards the good, does not the act of willing the good follow automatically? Here we must say that it does not: from our experience we know that having a habit does not make it impossible to do something that is contrary to the habit. Having a habit of smoking does not make it impossible to give up smoking, just as having a good habit does not make it impossible to do something contrary. So even when God moves us towards the good, even when God gives us grace, we are not compelled automatically to act according to that movement. </div><div><br /></div><div>But this might seem suspicious, especially after all our examples about the habits of guitar-playing and football, so let us go back to those examples. Let us think, not of the moment when one has already acquired these habits, when one is already an expert guitarist or footballer, but when one is just beginning. Parallel to this, let us think, not of the moment when one has already acquired a good habit, but when one is just a beginner. There comes a moment of grace, and it can be identified when we become aware of a desire, a willingness to do the good, where before there was not even that desire. This desire is usually not very forceful; it leaves us quite quite free; and so freely we can choose either to go along with it, or else to go against it. Let us go further: if we choose to go along with this grace, the second time it will be a little easier to do the same; and the more we choose to go along with it, the easier it becomes; even if sometimes we choose differently, we come back quite easily. This is the experience of responding to grace, accepting grace, growing in goodness. Sin remains a possibility, but the more we keep responding to grace, the more easily we pick up courage, repent of our sin, take up our journey towards God. In the limit grace becomes habitual in us; this is what theologians refer to as sanctifying grace. On the other hand, one refusal of grace leads to another, and if we are not careful, we find ourselves with a habit of sinfulness.</div><div><br /></div><div>So our distinction between willingness and the act of willing helps us to see how God can act on us and how we still maintain our freedom. It is necessary to add here that "God wills all men to be saved" (1 Tim 2:4), and that therefore we might draw the conclusion that God gives his grace to all men. If Jesus tells us that our heavenly Father in his great love sends rain upon just and unjust alike, and makes the sun shine upon good and wicked alike (Mt 5:45), are we to imagine that he would do less with the sunshine and the rain of his love and grace? So grace is given to all men; and yet all men remain free, and so responsible for their acts. So Saddam Hussein is free and responsible for his acts, as you and I are free and responsible for our acts. So free acts of goodness are possible, and equally freely we can and do sin; and since we are free, we are responsible; and if we are responsible for our acts, the question of punishment for sin should not be so difficult to understand, though here too we usually need a purification of our ideas of punishment for sin.</div><div><br /></div><div>Again, note that God's action on our willingness is not the only way he influences us; for the whole of the universe is in his hands; as we noted earlier, he applies all things to their actions; and so he can affect not only our willingness, but also our characters, our temperaments, the concrete situations in which we are born, in which we find ourselves; and so in a thousand ways he can act so as to lead us towards himself; and yet our strip of freedom, narrow though it is, remains intact. We might add here that there is a variation here: as Jesus says, to whom much has been given, much will be demanded. The responsibility of one who has had the opportunity to study and reflect is certainly different from one who has never had such an opportunity.</div><div><br /></div><div>God's plan</div><div><br /></div><div>We have been talking about how God's action of grace does not mean that man is not free. But now the question might arise, if man is free, and can do what he wants, what about the plan of God? Are we to conclude that God's plan can be destroyed by man's free acts? </div><div><br /></div><div>Once again here it is a question of sharpening, clarifying, correcting some of our ideas. When we think of the universe, or when we think of God's plan, the image we have is that of a clock, where every part is perfectly in place, so that if any single part is removed or disturbed, the whole clock stops working. But the universe is not like a clock, and God's plan is not a piece of machinery that will grind to a halt if someone decides not to go along with it. True, God is in control over everything; but this control does not mean that in each and every case things have to go 'according to plan'. Human beings may choose not to go along with the plan of God; but God's plan goes ahead inspite of this. </div><div><br /></div><div>The key to grasping this point may be the idea of statistical laws; the clock as a system does not involve statistical laws, but the universe as a whole involves not only 'classical' laws (like those of the clock) but also statistical laws. I will not go into this now; suffice to say that, when I toss a coin, the probability of getting a Heads is fifty-fifty; when I toss it ten times, it is quite possible that Heads does not occur even once; but when I toss it a hundred times, it is quite impossible that Heads does not occur even once; in fact, it is quite likely that it will occur roughly half the number of times; and if it does not, then you will begin to suspect that there is something wrong with the coin, that someone is cheating. So the greater the number of tosses, the more likely is it that the occurrence of Heads will be roughly 50% of the total number of tosses. That is a rough indication of how statistical laws operate. Now the universe involves such statistical laws, in addition to the classical laws with which we are more familiar. Classical laws are involved in the prediction of eclipses of the sun and the moon; but it is quite possible that some day there will be some cosmic collision that will disturb our solar system, and then there will be no more eclipses; but the probability of such collisions is a question of statistical laws.</div><div><br /></div><div>At any rate, our point was that God's plan has an element of statistical law; and so the presence of sin does not disrupt that plan. Since in fact God is in control of the whole process, he is able to lead all things towards their end while still leaving human beings quite free to choose whether they want to be part of his plan or not. Such choosing to be part of God's plan is really the fundamental thing; sin is understood in its proper dimension when understood as wanting to disrupt that plan; such a view also reveals the ultimate futility of sin. Again, sin is a very real possibility; and so Jesus asks us to pray in the Our Father: Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven. This prayer of Jesus becomes utter reality, first in the Garden where he prays that the chalice of suffering be taken away from him, but then ends: not my will but yours be done; and then on the cross: Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. This is the central mystery in the life of Jesus: his total obedience to the will of his Father; it is the central mystery in our lives: learning to surrender ourselves completely into the hands of God our Father. To this point we are constantly led by the Holy Spirit who is God's grace, the love of God poured into our hearts (Rom 5:5); and yet in every moment and in every place we remain free, so that St.Paul can exhort us: Work out your salvation in fear and trembling; and elsewhere: We are led by the Spirit of God; let us then walk by the Spirit. We are led, and yet we have to walk. There, in essence, is the mystery of grace and freedom.</div><div><br /></div><div>I end by noting my dependence on a Jesuit philosopher and theologian called Bernard Lonergan. Lonergan's doctoral thesis in theology was on the grace and freedom in the thought of the famous medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas. The question of grace and freedom has been, as Jose has pointed out, one of the most debated points in the history of catholic and christian theology; with Lonergan I believe that Thomas Aquinas arrived at the solution to this difficult question; with Lonergan I also believe that almost immediately Thomas' solution was 'lost' in the sense that it was not understood. Things were so bad that at a certain point the Pope had to order the theologians to stop discussing and to just believe that God gives grace without taking away our freedom. The matter remained like that until our century, when it was opened up once again. I tend to believe that Lonergan has recovered Thomas Aquinas' solution; I also believe that Lonergan has, in his independent writings, and especially in his book Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, expressed that basic solution in terms of modern science and contemporary psychology. I thought it would be honest to end with this acknowledgement to Lonergan and to Thomas, for I began by saying that I would say what I think on the matter; but really I have been saying what I have learnt from others. But that is how I believe things always are: for like the guitarist and like the footballer, we have to be beginners before we become experts. I wish you well in your own search. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>"Not each act of the elect but only the general result of salvation is causally certain; just as God makes certain of the perpetuity of the species by the vast number of its members, so also he makes certain of the salvation of the elect by imparting so many graces that either the predestined does not sin at all or, if hedoes, then he repents and rises again." (VB 78-79). However, from INCW 672-74, it is not certain that Lonergan would maintain precisely the same thing. It is true that providence as predestination is a question of "a statistically certain causality" (VB 141), but it does not follow that only the general result and not each act is causally certain. What is true, in other words, is that the result is assured statistically and not by controlling each act. It follows that sin is possible; it does not follow that the divine plan is disrupted by sin. [Check the IN treatment of human freedom, linked with statistics.]</div><div><br /></div><div>"Se Dio già conosce tutto quello che faremo, allora non c'è libertà; tutto è già stato deciso da Dio." </div><div><br /></div><div>La risposta è che non possiamo applicare la categoria di tempo a Dio. Allora non possiamo dire, "Dio ha pensato," "Dio ha deciso," "Dio già conosce," ecc. L'esistenza di Dio non svolge come la nostra, con un passato, un presente, e un futuro; per Dio tutto è presente. E' vero che Dio conosce tutto, ma non è vero che Dio lo conosce come futuro. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Ma anche se per Dio tutto è presente, rimane vero che Dio è onnipotente; e allora perchè non fa qualcosa di evitare il male, per impedire il peccato?"</div><div><br /></div><div>Bisogna distinguere vari tipi di male: male physico, male morale. Il peccato è male morale. Le risposte sono diverse per ciascun tipo. Dio non impedisce il peccato precisamente perché nella sua intenzione l'uomo è libero. Perché allora creare esseri liberi con questa capacità terribile di infliggere danni enormi a vicenda e di fare un tale macello nel mondo? Perché questo è il rischio inerente quando vuoi avere esseri liberi. E perché solo un essere libero è capace di amare. E perché Dio vuole condividere il suo amore con degli esseri capaci di sapere di esser amati, e capaci di amare a vicenda. L'amore e la libertà: non c'è uno senza l'altro: sono strettamente legati. Quando togli la libertà, non ce l'hai più la possibilità di amore; hai una schiavitù, una servitudine, una compulsione.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dio non impedisce il male physico perché ... Bisogna chiederci, che cos'è il bene. Bisogna riconoscere che Dio crea il tutto, e che in questa ordine ci sono cause secondarie che hanno una propria azione. Il mondo non è come un orologio.</div><div><br /></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-43904553566417185982023-11-20T07:27:00.000-08:002023-11-20T07:29:34.783-08:00Grace and religious experience<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><b>GRACE AND RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"><b>Lonavla, 9 November 2005</b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">All of us, it seems to me, are Pelagian by birth. At least I was. Only slowly did I discover the meaning of grace. I remember when I discovered that the spiritual life was not, after all, a matter of how much effort I made; there was grace. I remember the impact of Peter de Rosa’s book,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Not I, Not I, But the Wind that Blows Through Me</i>: the seagulls being carried by the wind. That was grace: being carried by the wind of the Spirit.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">So slowly we discover the meaning of grace. But then a new problem, so well expressed by Evasio so many years ago in Divyadaan: if God is the one who has to work, then I will continue sleeping in my meditation. He did not know it, but this was the same problem expressed by the monks of Hadremetum to St Augustine: if God gives grace, why do superiors have to be after our blood? This is the great problem of grace and freedom, and people have sinned on both sides of the spectrum.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Only slowly, if ever, do we come to a proper synthesis of grace and freedom. It struck me so forcefully one day in Italy: we need not wait for God to act, simply because he has already acted, his grace has already been given to us. It is up to us now to act, to respond to grace, to do our part.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Grace was first a commonsense scriptural category. With the reflection begun by Augustine and completed by Thomas, it became a systematic metaphysical category. Today we prefer experiential categories, and so everywhere there is talk of God-experience or of religious experience. All three ways of speaking have their own validity, though the last mentioned is of recent vintage, having gained popularity only with the Reformation and perhaps with Schleiermacher.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">The recent provocation for these reflections was provided by Kenny: why is it that Protestants, and especially the sects, are able to provide our youth with religious experience, and we Catholics are not?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">We could put the question to ourselves more directly: have I had a religious experience? If not, what am I doing here?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">I am convinced that grace – God’s love – is given to all. St Paul speaks of the love of God being poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Jesus speaks of the Spirit as the wind, blowing where it will: whither it comes, where it goes, we do not know.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">So grace is given to all. We may or may not respond to it. If we respond, we grow in it, and it goes on to become a habitual state in us, we move into the habitual state of being in love with God.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">With grace, or perhaps with the transformation wrought in us by grace (fruit of the dialectic of grace and freedom), we become a new creation in Christ. We are born again into new life. We begin to live a life of faith, hope and charity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">The presence of grace is evidenced by the presence of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace… By their fruits you will know them, says Jesus. There is a whole tradition of discernment of spirits in the Church, for we have to distinguish between true and false prophets, and good and bad spirits.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Religious experience is an ambiguous term.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Often it refers to the spectacular experiences of grace rather than to the experience of grace across the board.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Often it is identified with merely good feelings, and then such an understanding finds it difficult to make sense of the experience of pain, suffering, darkness and emptiness. Yet there is the witness of John of the Cross and of Mother Teresa. Good feelings, there is certainly place for them in prayer; but perhaps they are only lollipops, which God in his goodness gives to us when we are as yet merely babes in the spiritual life. The entire spiritual journey is far more complex than a mere set of good feelings. Good feelings alone can certainly not be the criteria of the authenticity of religious expeirnce. The experience of grace is, in fact, as large as life, as Lonergan reminds us so beautifully. 3C.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"Experience of grace, then, is as large as the Christian experience of life. It is experience of man's capacity for self-transcendence, of his unrestricted openness to the intelligible, the true, the good. It is experience of a twofold frustration of that capacity: the objective frustration of life in a world distorted by sin; the subjective frustration of one's incapacity to break with one's own evil ways. It is experience of a transformation one did not bring about but rather underwent, as divine providence let evil take its course and vertical finality be heightened, as it let one's circumstances shift, one's dispositions change, new encounters occur, and -- so gently and quietly -- one's heart be touched. It is the experience of a new community, in which faith and hope and charity dissolve rationalizations, break determinisms, and reconcile the estranged and the alienated, and there is reaped the harvest of the Spirit that is '... love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity, gentleness, and self-control' (<i>Gal</i>. 5:22)." [3C 32-33.]</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; letter-spacing: -0.1pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Maybe we have truncated the Catholic faith and practice: individual attention, confession; deeper entry into the Eucharist; Eucharistic adoration; true pastoral love and concern and support; family visits; systematic catechism and faith formation.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Religious experience comes to us in two ways: through the Spirit, and through the Son and the Church. For us Salesians, it comes to us through young people, through the poor, through our work with people, through all of life, in fact! Hopkins: there is freshness deep down things… Don Bosco is for us the father of our faith; he generates in us an experience of God. This makes perfect sense when we remember the doctrine of mediation, the role of the Church. The place of Our Lady also makes perfect sense in this light, and together with her our parents, family, friends, boys…</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">The temptation of the ephemeral and immediate. American religion. The here and now. Spiritual life is a journey. Once one has tasted the Catholic depths, there is no temptation of the sects and of new Age. It is the poverty of our theology that leads to such temptations. As De Smet used to tell me, the problem of Abhishiktananda was his Benedictine theology. The Benedictines have no theology, they only know liturgy. I have never had a crisis of faith; they all want me to have a crisis of faith, it makes for exciting reading, but I cant manufacture one!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Vacillation is a sign of the counterposition.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px;">Response to Kenny:</p><p><span style="color: #888888;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(136, 136, 136); font-size: small;"></span></span></p><p></p><p></p><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">William and P. Lourdes should not set the categories; but the gospels and sound Catholic tradition. But: what do the gospels and sound catholic tradition say?</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">My PG notes on RE</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">My Rome 2001 article.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">Scola and co.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">The rest of my preface to the Research on Catholic youth.</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">How to interiorize?</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">Lonergan…</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">are all ‘once born’ stupid? What about the saints? All twice born? Dominic Savio? Or are we subtly redefining ‘twice born’?</li><li class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 15px;">Still: how to interiorize? Personal spiritual direction, word in the ear, confession, learning to be masters of prayer – like DB. Aim: Sanctity, not twice born. IC MC RC.</li></ol><div>TO CLAUDIUS, 28.10.2OO9:</div><div>I think you might find something in these two files too... [PG 04 RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE; PG 07 NOTION OF GOD]<div><br /></div><div>Grace is a metaphysical category; the experiential equivalent seems to be Religious Experience / Conversion / Being in love in an unconditional manner. The manifestation of this state: fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5,22): love, joy, peace, patience, etc. </div><div><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Keep in mind: Grace / RE as defined, and as achieved. As achieved, the data are data on a process, and that process is, in a sense, dialectical: a struggle between authenticity and unauthenticity... </span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" /></div></div><div><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0in;" type="1"><span style="color: #888888;"></span></ol>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-28044348315116771292023-11-10T06:36:00.003-08:002023-11-10T07:04:54.666-08:00St Therese of Lisieux<p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">“</span><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">In the evening of this life, I shall appear before you with empty hands, for I do not ask you, Lord, to count my works</span></span><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">. All our justice is stained in your eyes. I wish, then, to be clothed in your own Justice and to receive from your Love the eternal possession of yourself”. (St Teresa of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face) (Cited by Pope Francis, "C'est la confiance," [10 Oct 2023] 3)</span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'Therese never uses the expression, common enough in her day, “I will become a saint”.' ("C'est la confiance," 20)</span></p><p><span face="system-ui, -apple-system, "system-ui", ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">'she has been recognized by UNESCO as one of the most significant figures for contemporary humanity.'</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> ("C'est la confiance," 4</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space-collapse: preserve;">)</span></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-19573641635507778632023-11-10T00:46:00.005-08:002023-11-10T01:08:16.631-08:00Pope Francis, Ad theologiam promovendam (2023)<p><span style="font-size: medium;">1. Theology cannot simply repropose abstract formulae and schemes of the past. Called to interpret the present in a prophetic manner and to discover new paths for the future in the light of Revelation, it must face squarely the new and profound cultural changes that are taking place. (ATP 1)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">3. A synodal, missionary and "outgoing" Church calls for <b>a theology "in uscita."</b> We have to abandon an armchair theology. We need to theologize on the frontiers, the peripheries. Good theologians, like good pastors, must have the smell of the sheep and of the street. with their reflections they pour oil and wine on the wounds of human beings. And such contact cannot be merely "tactical." Reflecting on the frontiers cannot be a strategy that involves merely extrinsic adjustment to contents that are already crystallized. Theology must engage in a rethinking of its epistemology and its methodology (cf. VG).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">4. Theological reflection is called to a change of paradigm, a "courageous cultural revolution" (LS 114). In the first place, it must be a <b>contextual</b> theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gosplel in the concrete conditions in which men and women live their daily lives, in the different geographical, social and cultural contexts. The archetype of such a method is the incarnation of the eternal Logos, his entering into culture, into a worldview, into the religious tradition of a people. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Starting from this, theology cannot but develop within a <b>culture of dialogue</b> and of <b>encounter</b> between different traditions, wisdoms, christian confessions, religions. The need for dialogue is intrinsic to the human being and to the whole of creation. It is the task of theology to discover<span style="font-family: inherit;"> '</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;">the Trinitarian imprint that makes the cosmos in which we live a “network of relations” in which “it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things”.' (VG 4a)</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: white;">5. This <b>relational dimension</b> connotes and defines the status of theology from an epistemic point of view. Theology cannot be self-referential; it has to take its place in a network of relationships, first of all with other disciples and wisdoms. This is the <i>cross-disciplinary approach</i>. Interdisciplinarity in a weak sense is happy to get a better understanding of the object by considering it from different points of view. Cross-disciplinarity or strong interdisciplinarity involves "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">situating and stimulating all disciplines against the backdrop of the Light and Life offered by the Wisdom streaming from God’s Revelation." (VG 4c)</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">6. The dialogue with other disciplines presupposes the dialogue within the ecclesial community, and the awareness of the essentially synodal and communion nature of doing theology. The theologian cannot but be a person of fraternity and communion, at the service of evangelization, and for reaching the hearts of all. [He has to be <span style="color: #2b00fe;">religiously and morally converted.</span>] "Ecclesial synodality therefore commits theologians to do theology in a synodal form, promoting among themselves the ability to listen, dialogue, discern and integrate the multiplicity and variety of instances and contributions". (Francis, Address to members of the ITC, 24 Nov 2022) It is therefore important that there be <span style="color: #2b00fe;">places, including institutional ones,</span> in which to live and experience theological collegiality and fraternity. [Crowe had suggested monasteries, and seminars and congresses and workshops preceded by live-ins for praying and sharing and talking together; we could think of ashrams.]</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;">7. The necessary attention to the scientific status of theology must not obscure its sapiential dimension. (S.Th. 1.1.6) For Rosmini, theology was a sublime expression of "intellectual charity"; he wanted the critical reason to be oriented to the Idea of Wisdom, which is a union of Truth and Love. It is impossible to know the truth without practising charity. (Degli studi dell'Autore, nn. 100-111)</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"In this way, theology can contribute to the current debate of 'rethinking thought', showing itself to be a true critical knowledge insofar as it is sapiential knowledge, not abstract and ideological, but spiritual, <span style="color: #2b00fe;">elaborated on its knees, pregnant with adoration and prayer;</span> a transcendent knowledge and, at the same time, <span style="color: #2b00fe;">attentive to the voice of the people</span>, hence 'popular' theology, mercifully addressing the open wounds of humanity and creation and within the folds of human history, to which it prophesises the hope of an ultimate fulfilment."</span></span></p><p><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: medium;">8. "This is about <span style="color: #2b00fe;">the pastoral 'stamp'</span> that theology as a whole, and not only in one particular area, must assume: <span style="color: #2b00fe;">without opposing theory and practice, theological reflection is urged to develop with an inductive method</span>, which starts from the different contexts and concrete situations in which peoples are inserted, allowing itself to be seriously challenged by reality, to become discernment of the 'signs of the times' in the proclamation of the salvific event of the God-agape, communicated in Jesus Christ." Theology must give privileged place to the commonsense of the people, which is a theological place...</span></span></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-4350073571054454752023-11-09T09:19:00.003-08:002023-11-11T00:49:05.711-08:00Doing theology and learning theology<p>I've been trying to reformulate the following from 24 FSDB 04.11.2023 EN, Appendix 7: The program of studies: specific formation of the salesian priest:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>A simple theoretical exposition of the tenets of Christian faith will not suffice. There must be a balance between two approaches in theological formation: knowledge leading to a relational experience of God in Christ and the need for propositional knowledge of Christ. In other words, theological education has to integrate faith as kerygma, koinonia, diakonia, martyria and leitourgia, keeping in mind that “the whole tradition of the Church cannot be reduced to the mechanical transmission of inert objects, since it is carried by a living subject and knows a development.” </p><p>A serious hermeneutics of the tradition of the Church and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>The original problem arose from the attempt to translate "the need for propositional knowledge of Christ" into Italian. One does not easily say "conoscenza proposizionale" in Italian, says Silvio Roggia. Cloe Taddei-Ferretti suggested <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Segoe UI"; font-size: small;">"</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Segoe UI";">conoscenza di Cristo attraverso proposizioni". </span></p><p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: "Segoe UI";">Perhaps I just need to reformulate the two paragraphs.</span></p><p>I have been dipping into Lonergan, first to find how "propositional truth" has been translated into Italian, and then asking myself: how would Lonergan talk about the teaching / learning of theology? </p><p>I've dipped into "Christ as Subject: A Reply" (CWL 4:153-184); "The Dehellenization of Dogma" (13:11-30); "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" 17:352-383); "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (13:140ff). Also a bit into <i>Method in Theology</i> (CWL 14).</p><p>Reading "The Response of the Jesuit as Priest and Apostle in the Modern World" (CWL 13:140ff), I am struck by the <b>structure</b> of the text: (1) Authenticity, (2) The Spirit, (3) The Word, (4) Sending.</p><p>I had never noticed the two missions there, in sections 2 and 3: the Spirit and the Word.</p><p>And then the Church, in section 3. "The gift of the Spirit can be everywhere at once, but the challenge of the Word radiates to the ends of the earth only through human mediation." (CWL 13:148)</p><p>See "Questionnaire on Philosophy: Response" (CWL 17:358): In the Christian religion as lived but not yet thematized there may be distinguished three moments: (1) the ontic present of God's love flooding our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us; (2) the objective past in which God's revelation of his love to us through Christ Jesus has been mediated down the ages by the ongoing Christian community; (3) the eschatological consummation and, on the way, the command and the duty to preach the gospel to every class in every culture. </p><p>Doing theology = mediating between a cultural matrix and the significance and role of a religion in that matrix. (CWL 14:3)</p><p>Teaching or learning theology: what is it? I guess it is moving from the Christian religion as lived, and as lived with a largely symbolic thematization (scripture, catechism, doctrine) to a properly theological thematization. "A Christian theology thematizes the Christian religion on the level of the times in which the theology is composed." (17:358)</p><p>That thematization, for an ordinary student of theology in the first cycle, would involve thematizing his own lived experience (the gift of God's love, the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life), in interaction with the objective past and present mediation by the Christian community of the revelation of God's love in Jesus. </p><p>There is no "individual experience" hermetically sealed from the experience of others in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions, so lived experience includes one's own experience in interaction with that of others. Theology will help one to access one's own experience and enlarge "that of others" to include "the tradition" as well as "the current trends of contemporary culture." (see the Ratio text above)</p><p>Reading: Francis, "Ad theologiam provendam" (2023). (See the blog entry of 10.11.2023)</p><p>Formulation:</p><p>The study of theology in preparation for the Salesian priesthood cannot be a question of merely studying abstract formulae and schemes of the past with no effort to connect them to one's own experience of faith and to the places and times in which one is living. </p><p>The study of theology involves appropriating the faith as lived in the past and in the present in order to deepen one's own faith, and to serve God's people, especially the young. Formation in mission involves also, therefore, theologizing in mission: the young to whom we are sent and our mission to them must enter into our study and our reflection: "For you I study", just as it enters into our prayer. Theology, apostolic experiences, prayer, all must flow together. </p><p>A serious hermeneutics of Scripture, tradition and “the current trends of contemporary culture” (VG 72.3) is called for. Among the issues of relevance are certainly the existential peripheries, poverty and migration, the digitalized world, new views about marriage, family and gender, the ecological crisis, the plurality of religions and the range of religious attitudes from extreme fundamentalism to the increasing number of those without religious affiliation or else are simply indifferent to all forms of religion.</p><p><br /></p><p>From Mark T. Miller, 11.11.2023:</p><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wow, I can't think of something that has all of those things. I'm still looking though. Here's two good ones I've found so far in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Method,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>1973 red edition, p. 278:</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">It may be objected that <i>nihil amatum nisi praecognitum. </i>But while that is true of other human love, it need not be true of the love with which God floods our hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5).<b><i> </i></b>That grace could be the finding that grounds our seeking God through natural reason and through positive religion. It could be the touchstone by which we judge whether it is really God that natural reason reaches<sup>5 </sup>or positive religion preaches. It could be the grace that God offers all men, that underpins what is good in the religions of mankind, that explains how those that never heard the gospel can be saved. It could be what enables the simple faithful to pray to their heavenly Father in secret even though their religious apprehensions are faulty. Finally, it is in such grace that can be found the theological justification of Catholic dialogue with all Christians, with non-Christians, and even with atheists who may love God in their hearts while not knowing him with their heads.</p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></p>Here's a longer one from<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Method</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>326-27:</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">There are two ways in which the unity of the faith may be conceived. On classicist assumptions there is just one culture. That one culture is not attained by the simple faithful, the people, the natives, the barbarians.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>None the less<span style="font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>career<span style="font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>is always open to talent. One enters upon such a career by diligent study of the ancient Latin and Greek authors. One pursues such a career by learning Scholastic philosophy and theology. One aims at high office by becoming proficient in canon law. One succeeds by </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">winning the approbation and favor of the right personages. Within this set-up the unity of faith is a matter of everyone subscribing to the correct formulae.</span></p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Such classicism, however , was never more than the shabby shell of Catholicism. The real root and ground of unity is being in love with God—the fact that God’s love has flooded our inmost hearts through the Holy Spirit he has given us (Rom. 5, 5). The acceptance of this gift both constitutes religious conversion and leads to moral and even intellectual conversion.</p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Further, religious conversion, if it is Christian, is not just a state of mind and heart. Essential to it is an intersubjective, interpersonal component. Besides the gift of the Spirit within, there is the outward encounter with Christian witness. That witness testifies that of old in many ways God has spoken to us through the prophets but in this latest age through his Son (Heb. I, 1.2).</p><p style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0.5in;">Thirdly, the function of church doctrines lies within the function of Christian witness. For the witness is to the mysteries revealed by God and, for Catholics, infallibly declared by the church. The meaning of such declarations lies beyond the vicissitudes of human historical process. But the contexts, within which such meaning is grasped, and so the manner, in which such meaning is expressed, vary both with cultural differences and with the measure in which human consciousness is differentiated.</p></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-61770011024040198132023-01-09T00:34:00.003-08:002023-01-09T00:34:39.146-08:00Fred Lawrence for the Ratio<p>I thought of reading Fred Lawrence for the Ratio, thinking of his brilliant phrases: the self that is only eschatologically itself; the divine reversal of the habitual recoil of the self into massive possessiveness; the subject that is not completely master of itself (the authenticity of the subject or lack of it cannot ever be brought completely into the foreground - our course is in the night, our control only rough and approximate)... (see my new file, LAWRENCE anthropology notes, for now in the Revision of the Ratio folder...)</p><p>Lawrence / Lonergan's anthropology is complex. is that complexity missing in the Ratio? Given that Lawrence's complexity only reflects the complexity of life and a world in which grace is offered, accepted or rejected, in a multitude of subjects, societies, cultures over time and space, perhaps not. But how to introduce it? </p><p>One obvious element: Lawrence insists on the three conversions, and not only on moral and religious conversion. </p><p> </p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-83828503483227560252022-12-13T23:51:00.008-08:002022-12-14T00:09:36.145-08:00Analogy<p>Mauro Mantovani, "L'analogia 'tomista': tra fonti, interpretazioni e nuove richerche." <i>Salesianum</i> 84/3 (2022) 433-460.</p><p>The following bibliography is from his note 3.</p><p>F.A. Blance, L'analogie," <i>Revue de Philosophie</i> 23 (1923) 248-271.</p><p>N. Balthasar, "L'abstraction et l'analogie de l'être," <i>Estudios Franciscanos</i> 34 (1924) 166-216.</p><p>R. McInerny, <i>Studies in Analogy</i> (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968).</p><p>S.M. Ramírez, <i>De analogia</i>, 4 vols. Madrid: CSIC, 1970-1972.</p><p>P. Secretan, <i>L'analogie</i>. Paris: PUF, 1984.</p><p>B. Pinchard, <i>Métaphysique et sémantique (la signification analogiques des termes dan les principes mathématiques)</i>. Paris: Vrin, 1987.</p><p>E. Przywara. <i>Analogia entis</i>. Paris: PUF, 1990.</p><p>A. de Murault. <i>Néoplatonisme et aristotélisme dans la métaphysique médiévale. Analogie, causalité, participation</i>. Paris: Vrin, 1995.</p><p>R.M.W. Stamberger. <i>On analogy. An Essay Historical and Systematic</i>. New York: P. Lang, 1995.</p><p>V. Melchiorre. <i>La via analogica</i>. Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1996.</p><p>J. Gambra, La analogia en general. Síntesis tomista de Santiago Ramírez. Pamplona: Eunsa, 2002. 20-70.</p><p>J.F. Courtine. Inventio analogiae. <i>Métaphysique et ontothéologie</i>. Paris: Vrin, 2005.</p><p>A. Pérez de Laborda, ed. <i>Jornada sobre analogía</i>. Madrid: Publicaciones de la Facultad de Teología "San Dámaso", 2006.</p><p>T. Tyn. <i>Metafisica della sostanza. Partecipazione e</i> analogia entis. Verona: Fede & Cultura, 2009.</p><p>F. Moretti. <i>Il pensiero di Dio. L'analogia nella teologia occidentale</i>. Milano: Mimesis, 2019.</p><p>M. Beuchot Puente. "Acerca de una hermenéutica analógica," <i>Per la filosofia. Filosofia e insegnamento</i> 37 (2020) n. 108, 119-127.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mantovani's own book is in the press:</p><p>M. Mantovani. <i>L'analogia tomista nell'interpretazione di alcuni autori della cosidetta 'seconda Scolastica'.</i> to be published.</p><p>He has other bibliography in the rest of the article; I guess these are the "new" interpretions he mentions in the title of his article. I noticed abundant references to A. Alessi. J.F. Wippel, L.B. Geiger (1942), C. Fabro (2005), A. Contat (2017), B. Mondin, and Klubertanz (2009) are also mentioned.</p><p><br /></p><p>See my own article, which contains a slightly different bibliography, deriving probably from Henrici's course at the Greg (cited in the article).</p><p>Ivo Coelho,“Analogy.” <i>ACPI Encyclopedia of Philosophy</i>. Ed. Johnson J. Puthenpurackal. Bangalore: Asian Trading Corporation, 2010. 1:64-68.
</p><p><br /></p><p>Benedict XVI: the doctrine of analogy of St Thomas is the basis for any human discourse about divinity. Audiene of 16 June 2010. (Mantovani 460)</p><p>B. Mondin: the Thomist doctrine of analogy is of perennial value. contemporary scholars of religious language (Ramsey, Ferré, Mascall, Bochenski) show that it is the best response to the positivists, existentialists, linguistic analysts, who claim that religious language has no objective signification or meaning. (Mantovani 460)</p><p>[Missing ... the author I used in Philosophy of God... what's his name. The chap of the three fortresses.]</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-10740836101757567412022-05-22T00:03:00.000-07:002022-05-22T00:03:04.952-07:00Wittgenstein, Private Notebooks 1914-1916<div class="dcr-1nupfq9" data-gu-name="headline" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; grid-area: headline / headline / headline / headline; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="dcr-krkkhw" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; max-width: 620px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="dcr-13a2edo" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 36px; vertical-align: baseline;"><h1 class="dcr-17q5ki2" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b5840; font-family: "GH Guardian Headline", "Guardian Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 2.125rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.15; margin: 0px; padding: 4px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Private Notebooks 1914-1916 by Ludwig Wittgenstein review – sex and logic</h1></div></div></div><div class="dcr-zjgnrw" data-gu-name="standfirst" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; grid-area: standfirst / standfirst / standfirst / standfirst; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class=" dcr-gv481e" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.15; margin: 0px 0px 12px; max-width: 540px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Translated into English for the first time, these diaries provide a glimpse into the innermost thoughts of a great philosopher</p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-style: inherit;">Anil Gomes, </span><i>The Guardian</i><span style="font-style: inherit;">, Wednesday, 18 May 2022</span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: GH Guardian Headline, Guardian Egyptian Web, Georgia, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-size: 20px;">https://www.theguardian.com/profile/anil-gomes</span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #121212; font-family: GH Guardian Headline, Guardian Egyptian Web, Georgia, serif;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); font-size: 20px;"><br /></span></span></p><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhs9OUd8ZDi-V_ULVgd151l_hYRN7hiOJR1CrFT9lExXTvaJoyjBBQ52Vh7Bz2wmZZjWIABry5i7lFVlnTF5bzyJ6vykOTw02hWsGZaIwZPWVhXvzCDOASRVMU2ki4f7bi5MLE6qOj6Hhufj2LqiqsPf7lEoC7YlEmqPwCdqx7pOpM4bLyJThf5VuAV" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="1240" height="191" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhs9OUd8ZDi-V_ULVgd151l_hYRN7hiOJR1CrFT9lExXTvaJoyjBBQ52Vh7Bz2wmZZjWIABry5i7lFVlnTF5bzyJ6vykOTw02hWsGZaIwZPWVhXvzCDOASRVMU2ki4f7bi5MLE6qOj6Hhufj2LqiqsPf7lEoC7YlEmqPwCdqx7pOpM4bLyJThf5VuAV" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span class="dcr-1i2w9iu" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b5840; float: left; font-family: "GH Guardian Headline", "Guardian Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 2.625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.15; margin: 0px 4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; text-transform: uppercase; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="dcr-1jnp7wy" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 118px; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: 99px; margin: 0px 4px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; pointer-events: none; vertical-align: text-top;">L</span></span><span class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">udwig Wittgenstein joined the army the day after his native Austria-Hungary declared war on Russia in August 1914. He had been serving for almost three months when he received word that his brother Paul, a concert pianist, had lost his right arm in battle. “Again and again,” he wrote in his notebook, “I have to think of poor Paul, who has so suddenly been deprived of his vocation! How terrible! What philosophical outlook would it take to overcome such a thing? Can it even happen except through suicide!”</span></p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Wittgenstein was an unusual philosopher. He became obsessed with the foundations of logic while an engineering student and presented himself to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2013/nov/18/bertrand-russell-philosopher-religion-ethics-life" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b5840; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">Bertrand Russell</a><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>in Cambridge, ready to solve all its problems. His intent was to provide an account of logic that was free from paradox and his solution came in the form of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, sent to Russell from the Italian prisoner-of-war camp in which Wittgenstein was held at the end of the first world war.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white; text-size-adjust: auto;">The Tractatus is written as a series of numbered propositions, closer in form to modernist poetry than philosophical treatise. Its central ideas can be traced back to the notebooks Wittgenstein kept during the early years of the conflict. The right-hand side of each spread was used to set out his evolving thoughts on logic and language. The left-hand side was saved for his personal notes, written in a simple code in which the letters of the alphabet were reversed (Z = A, and so on).</span></p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">It is these private remarks that are published in English here for the first time, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff. They<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></em>range from complaints about the other soldiers – “a bunch of swine! No enthusiasm for anything, unbelievable crudity, stupidity & malice!” – to the number of times he masturbates (“Yesterday, for the first time in 3 weeks”). He recounts his depression – “like a stone it presses on my chest. Every duty turns into an unbearable burden” – and his living conditions. These are accompanied by constant updates on how his work is going. And by “work”, he always means philosophy. “Remember how great the blessing of work is!” he writes. This work is the focus; the war, a backdrop.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background-color: white; text-size-adjust: auto;"></span></p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Wittgenstein’s solution to the problems of logic was largely in place by 1916. And had his contribution to philosophy ended there, the Tractatus might be unknown beyond that particular sub-field. But the book ends with a series of puzzling remarks on ethics, value and the meaning of life – remarks that Wittgenstein thought central to his project but which both confused and frustrated his first readers. It is here that the Notebooks tantalise. For in the material on the left-hand pages Wittgenstein first begins to reflect on the inner self, on God’s presence in the world, on what is required for life to make sense. It can sometimes seem irrelevant to the discussion of logic taking place on the right-hand side. “Have thought a great deal about all sorts of things,” he writes, “but curiously enough cannot establish their connection to my mathematical train of thought.”</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; caret-color: rgb(107, 88, 64); color: #6b5840; font-family: "GH Guardian Headline", "Guardian Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 700; text-size-adjust: auto;">He has the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire</span></p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">And then in 1916, facing death on the frontline, the connection is forged. Paradox in logic arises when you try to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">say</em><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>those things that can only be<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">shown</em>. But that applies equally to God, the self and meaning. As he writes on a left-hand page, “What cannot be said, cannot be said”. The purview of ethics, like the purview of logic, lies outside the realm of what can be stated in language. And thus we get to the seventh and final statement of the Tractatus: whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">For those who know the Tractatus, there is some interest in seeing how concerns that start life among the personal remarks slowly drift over to the facing page. For those who do not care about these details, there is interest in seeing first-hand the obsessive focus of a philosophical genius – one who thinks constantly about his work, even under enemy fire. When he writes of “laying siege”, it is to philosophical problems; when he wants to “spill [his] blood before this fortress”, it is in the context of logic.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Even the masturbation is hard to separate from the philosophy: it happens when work is going well. For Wittgenstein, it seems, masturbation and philosophy are both expressions of living in the face of death.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;">Perloff sees allusion to sexual affairs in some of Wittgenstein’s taciturn remarks. He records evening visits to the baths in Kraków and notes, somewhat matter-of-factly at the start of a new year, that “my moral standing is now much lower than it was at Easter”. More affecting is his unambiguous love and desire for his Cambridge friend David Pinsent. “A letter from David!! I kissed it. Answered right away.” Pinsent didn’t survive the war. He was a test pilot in Farnborough and died in an accident in May 1918. The Tractatus – one of the most significant works in 20th-century philosophy – is dedicated to his memory.</p><p class="dcr-139bh9t" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span style="background-color: #f6f6f6; caret-color: rgb(107, 88, 64); color: #6b5840; font-family: "GH Guardian Headline", "Guardian Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 700; text-size-adjust: auto;"><span class="dcr-19spiha" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; font-family: -webkit-standard; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-weight: 400; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-size-adjust: auto; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></p><footer style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; caret-color: rgb(18, 18, 18); color: #121212; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><p style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 1.0625rem; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: break-word;"><span data-dcr-style="bullet" style="background-color: #a1845c; border-radius: 50%; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; content: ""; display: inline-block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: 0.8125rem; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0.0125rem 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 0.8125rem;"></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Private Notebooks 1914-1916 is published by WW Norton (£18.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a data-link-name="in body link" href="https://guardianbookshop.com/private-notebooks-1914-1916-9781324090809?utm_source=editoriallink&amp;utm_medium=merch&amp;utm_campaign=article" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(220, 220, 220); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #6b5840; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="">guardianbookshop.com</a>. Delivery charges may apply.</p></footer></div></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-8454251068598275002022-05-04T07:26:00.003-07:002022-05-04T07:26:13.068-07:00Ricoeur, Consciousness is not a given but a task
"Everything that can be said about consciousness after Freud seems to me to be contained in the following formula: Consciousness is not a given but a task."
- by posing such a question we acquire a knowledge about the unconscious which is no longer realist but dialectical.
Paul Ricoeur, "Consciousness and the Unconscious," in The Conflict of Interpretations, pp. 99-120. (See notes in my file, Coelho/Ricoeur, CI 05, Consciousness and the Unconscious.)
Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-87914948002796085972022-05-04T00:26:00.001-07:002022-05-04T00:26:04.748-07:00The Spirit is given to all the baptized<p> </p>"Hence the Bishop is both teacher and disciple. He is a teacher when, endowed with the special assistance of the Holy Spirit, he proclaims to the faithful the word of truth in the name of Christ, head and shepherd. But he is a disciple when, knowing that the Spirit has been bestowed upon every baptized person, he listens to the voice of Christ speaking through the entire People of God, making it 'infallible <i>in credendo</i>'." (Pope Francis, Apostolic Constitution <i>Episcopalis communio</i> on the Syod of Bishops (15 September 2018) 5.)Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-15536856651082210522022-05-03T08:34:00.001-07:002022-05-03T08:34:08.995-07:00Lonergan's new notion of habit (1959)<p><span style="font-size: medium;">[The new notion is found, it would seem, only in a little known archival text. I think it is a very significant notion.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">To clarify it, I would need to clarify: (1) the shift from faculty psychology to the flow of consciousness (TE 1959) or intentionality analysis, (2) the new psychological analysis of development and the way it is different from the metaphysical analysis found in ch. 15 of <i>Insight</i>, (3) the new notion of the human good, in contrast to the cosmic or intellectual account of ch. 18 of <i>Insight</i>.]</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">HM 109-110:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>De systemate et historia</i> (Fall 1959) notes that the upper blade must be related to all philosophies as mathematics is to all hypotheses and theories of physics. A system of this type can be constructed in several ways: (1) as Hegelian dialectic, (2) as something initially potential, to be perfected and determined through research, (3) as a conceptual potency, (4) <span style="color: #2b00fe;">as a potency of some other type, such as operational</span>. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">This operational potency is probably related to the notion of operational habit found in the archival text 'De circulo operationum.'</span> The latter is to be distinguished from the 'operative habit' of the scholastics insofar as operative habits reside in some single and determinate potency, whereas operational habits can reside in several potencies at once: for instance, art involves the whole person, body and soul. Further, operational habits need not be restricted to a single mind, for science is an explicitly conscious operational habit, and it is so extensive that it cannot be contained in a single mind.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Now if operational potency is the same as operational habit, then we can say that the universal viewpoint defined in this way transcends the restriction both to some single faculty and to a single mind. But perhaps we should be careful.... </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">HM 111:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">The philosophy of education lectures of 1959 begin to speak about a shift from faculty psychology to the flow of consciousness. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">This is matched by a new, psychological analysis of development in contrast to the metaphysical analysis of chapter 15 of <i>Insight</i> and by a human account of the good in contrast to the cosmic or intellectual account of chapter 18 of <i>Insight</i>.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #2b00fe;">The new analysis of development, formulated with help from Piaget, leads to a significant new notion of habit that, in contrast to the scholastic one, is confined neither to some single faculty nor to a single mind.</span> [Coelho, <i>Hermeneutics and Method</i> 111.]</span></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-50345546040311603752022-03-05T05:52:00.005-08:002022-03-05T05:52:41.150-08:00Peter Henrici, SJ at the Greg<p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(11, 83, 148); color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">Besides the seminar we had with Peter Henrici, SJ (reading Blondel's <i>L'action</i>, where he taught us to use a set of methods for interpreting a philosophical text), I also attended his "Un discorso filosofico per la teologia." This was something amazing: students would turn up from all the Roman universities around, sitting on the window sills and on the floor... classes were packed and electrifying. Henrici would walk in carrying 5 or 6 large books, Plato in Greek and so on, and he was amazing. He took us from the Pre-socratics up to Heidegger and beyond. I used to think: perhaps Heidegger had that kind of effect on his students. a pity that I was in my first roman semester, and could follow only that much Italian. i have vague notes somewhere... but what he said did have an effect. As also his seminar - I tried to use the methods in my doctoral work. I guess they belonged to the "minor methods" of the upper blade, while Lonergan concentrated on method in a larger sense...</span></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-13594648121011224902022-01-07T03:20:00.004-08:002022-01-07T03:20:48.070-08:00Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde on capitalism<p>http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1338746bdc4.html?eng=y</p><h1 style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Eve of an Encyclical. And from Germany, Marx Reappears</h1><p style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 2px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;">A few weeks before the publication of "Caritas in Veritate," the German Catholic jurist Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, highly esteemed by the pope, calls for the Church to write the definitive "manifesto" against capitalism. Which must be overturned at its foundations, because it is inhuman<br /><br /><b>by Sandro Magister</b><br /><br /><br /></p><center style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://data.kataweb.it/kpmimages/kpm3/misc/chiesa/2009/06/05/jpg_1338747.jpg" /></center><p><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">ROME, June 5, 2009 – The socioeconomic encyclical that has been in development for some time is known to begin with the Latin words "Caritas in veritate." It is expected to be signed by the pope on June 29, and released at the beginning of summer. It underwent various revisions, all of which left Benedict XVI dissatisfied until the last one.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Unlike the encyclical on hope, written by the pope himself from the first line to the last, and unlike the encyclical on charity, the first half of which was also written entirely by the pope, many minds and many hands have worked on "Caritas in Veritate." But in any case, Benedict XVI will leave his mark on it, already visible in the words of the title, which indissolubly link charity and truth.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">There is a great deal of curiosity about what kind of mark this will be. Because little is known about Joseph Ratzinger's thought in matters of economics. Out of his vast body of writings, there is only one dedicated expressly to this topic. It is a conference given in English in 1985, entitled "Market economy and ethics."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In that conference, Ratzinger maintained that an economy without any ethical or religious foundation is destined for collapse.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Now that there actually has been a collapse, more detailed analyses and proposals are expected from Benedict XVI.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">A few months ago, responding to a question from a priest of Rome, the pope said:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">"It is the Church's duty to denounce the fundamental errors that have now been revealed in the collapse of the major American banks. Human greed is a form of idolatry that is against the true God, and is a falsification of the image of God with another god, Mammon. We must denounce this courageously, but also concretely, because grand moralizations are not helpful if they are not supported by a familiarity with reality, which helps us to understand what can be done concretely. The Church has never simply denounced evils, it also shows the paths that lead to justice, to charity, to the conversion of hearts. In the economy as well, justice is established only if there are just persons. And these persons are assembled through the conversion of hearts."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It was February 26, 2009, and the encyclical was in its drafting phase. Those words from the pope had the effect of increasing the curiosity.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">***</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">But the curiosity has become even more pressing since the publication in May</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">of a bombshell article by a German scholar whom Ratzinger has always read with interest and esteem.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The scholar is Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, of the same generation as the pope, a Catholic philosopher and a preeminent political scientist. In a pivotal 1967 essay, he presented what was later called the "Böckenförde paradox": the thesis according to which "the secularized liberal state lives by presuppositions that it cannot guarantee."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">On January 19, 2004, then-cardinal Raztinger and philosopher Jürgen Habermas used this thesis as the starting point for a debate in Munich on the theme "Ethics, religion, and the liberal state."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">So, in an article for "Süddeutsche Zeitung," also published in Italy in May by the journal of the Sacred Heart fathers in Bologna, "Il Regno" – and presented in its entirety further below – Böckenförde applied his "paradox" to capitalism as well, but in much more devastating terms.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In his judgment, the principles on which the capitalist economic system is founded can no longer stand. Its current collapse is definitive, and has revealed the inhuman foundations of this system. The economy must therefore be rebuilt from the ground up, not on principles of egoism, but of solidarity. It is up to the states, and European countries in the first place, to take control of the economy. And it is up to the Church, with its social doctrine, to accept the testimony of Marx, who saw correctly.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Böckenförde's anticapitalist "manifesto" brought reaction, in Italy, from the Catholic economists most trusted by the Church, interviewed by "il Foglio": Luigi Campiglio, vice president of the Catholic University of Milan; Dario Antiseri, a philosopher and follower of the liberal economic school of Vienna; Flavio Felice, a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University and president of the Tocqueville-Acton study center; Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, a banker and economic commentator for "L'Osservatore Romano."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In particular, Antiseri objects that "restoring Marx today is like continuing to be Ptolemaic after Copernicus and Newton"; that "individualism is the opposite of collectivism, not of solidarism, and this is possible only if there is the creation of wealth to be shared, as takes place in capitalist societies"; and finally that Benedict XVI cannot be expected to distance himself from "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II and from "Rerum Novarum" by Leo XII, with its "lucid and impassioned defense of private property."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Flavio Felice contests Böckenförde's unrealistic vision of an "angelic economy" as an alternative to a capitalism that is identified with pure lust for gain. And regarding the salvific control of the state over the economy, he points out that the encyclical "Centesimus Annus" by John Paul II, in paragraph 25, warns against precisely this danger: "When people think they possess the secret of a perfect social organization which makes evil impossible, they also think that they can use any means, including violence and deceit, in order to bring that organization into being. Politics then becomes a 'secular religion' which operates under the illusion of creating paradise in this world."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Ettore Gotti Tedeschi observes that Böckenförde lashes out against a capitalism of Protestant origin, dominated by man's egoism and inability to do good. But he does not realize that there is a capitalism in keeping with Catholic doctrine, which the popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II have denounced for its errors while appreciating its basic validity, linked to private property and freedom of investment and commerce.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In an article in "Il Sole 24 Ore" – Europe's most widely circulated financial newspaper – Gotti Tedeschi maintained that the current global turbulence does not arise from excessive greed or the lack of rules. These have aggravated the crisis, but did not cause it. The real cause was the reduction of the birth rate, and therefore of the human capital that alone was capable of ensuring the necessary growth in production.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The frontal attack that Böckenförde brings against capitalism must in any case come to terms with the answer that "Centesimus Annus," in paragraph 42, gives to the question of whether capitalism is a system that corresponds to "true economic and civil progress."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The answer of the encyclical is the following:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">"If by 'capitalism' is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a business economy, market economy or simply free economy."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In his article, the German scholar asks the social doctrine of the Church to awaken from its "Sleeping Beauty slumber" and apply itself to a "radical refutation" of capitalism, made obligatory by its current "evident collapse."</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">After the publication of "Caritas in Veritate," it will therefore be interesting how Böckenförde comments on it.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">But meanwhile, here is his bombshell article, published in Italy in "Il Regno" no. 10 of 2009:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><strong style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The functional man. Capitalism, property, role of the states<br /><br />by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde</strong><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The financial and consequently economic crisis that has struck us and is still far from over raises many questions. Was it caused by the irresponsibility and greed of various banks, especially investment banks? Or by the lack of strict rules for the international financial markets, by the lack of effective oversight of banks and finance, by the separation and independence of a virtual (and acrobatic) economy from the real economy of production and assets? Probably a number of such factors contributed, combined with a naive trust in a "free" and unregulated market.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">But looking for causes only in this direction does not take us very far. In fact, the system that has been set up in this area for decades with success and with significant material profits, but also with a growing distance between poor and rich, that "turbo-capitalism" (called this by Helmut Schmidt) which reached a new level with globalization before causing a collapse, cannot be defined and explained only by making reference to the wrongful actions of individual persons or even of groups.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This certainly could have played a part, but more generally it is a matter of the results of an established and very widespread system of interaction that follows its own functional logic, and subjects everything else to it. This system of interaction was transformed into a system of action: modern capitalism. This forges the economic (and in part the non-economic) activity of individuals, and integrates it into the system. These individuals are certainly the ones who act, but in their action they do not follow so much their own free impulses as the stimuli produced by the system and its functional logic.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">THE INHUMAN CHARACTER OF CAPITALISM</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">But how does modern capitalism present itself more precisely as a system of action? We can get help in this from a great humanistic sociologist of the last century, Hans Freyer. In his book "Theorie des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters [Theory of the present era]," he discusses "secondary systems" as specific products of the modern industrialized world, and analyzes their structure in detail (1).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The secondary systems are characterized by the fact that they develop processes of action that are not connected to preexisting arrangements, but are based on a few functional principles that give them their form and makeup. These processes of action integrate man not as a person in his entirety, but only with the active forces and the functions that are required by the principles and their implementation. What persons are or should be is left aside.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">These kinds of processes of action are developed and consolidated in a diffuse system characterized by its specific functional rationality, which overlaps existing social reality, influencing, changing, and shaping it.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This is the key to analyzing capitalism as a system of action. It is based on just a few premises: the general freedom of the individual and of associations of individuals in matters of purchasing and contracts; full freedom in matters of transferring goods, business, and capital across national borders; the guarantee and free control of personal property (including the right of succession), intending by property the possession of goods and money, but also of information, technology, and capacity.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The functional objective is the general liberation of a potentially unlimited profit interest, in addition to the possibilities for earnings and production, which operate on the free market and enter into competition with each other. The decisive impulse is given by an egotistical individualism that drives the persons involved to buy, innovate, and profit. This impulse constitutes the engine, the active principle; it does not pursue a preexisting content objective that establishes measures and limits, but an unlimited expansion, growth and enrichment. For this reason, it is necessary to eliminate or set aside all of the obstacles and regulations that are not required by the aforementioned premises. The only regulating principle must be the free market.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The point of departure and the foundation of the construction are not the satisfaction of the needs of men and their growing well-being; these follow the process and its progress, they are so to speak a consequence of the functioning system. Law, and the state as its custodian, have the sole task of ensuring the possibility of development and the functioning of this system of action. They are a variable function, not a preexisting force of organization and limitation.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The dynamism of such a system and its influence on behavior are enormous. The system itself becomes, and is, a subject of commerce. Profit making, growth of capital, increase in production and productivity, self-affirmation and growth of the market constitute the motive and dominant principle, the functional rationality of which integrates and subordinates everything else. Workers are taken into consideration only on the basis of the functions that they perform and the costs that they involve, for which reason they are reduced to the smallest number possible. Replacing them, where possible, with machines or automated technologies in order to reduce costs seems not only ration, but economically necessary.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Compensation for the social problems and terminations that result from this has no place in this functional logic, but is demanded of the state and its function as a safeguard, which in order to do this can impose taxes and ask for contributions, which in any case involve more costs for businesses. The structuring principle is not solidarity with persons and of persons among themselves; it is taken into consideration only as a measure to prevent, and in part compensate for, the harmful and inhuman consequences of the system, which develops on the basis of its own internal logic.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">There can be no doubt about the extraordinary economic and social achievements that capitalism structured in this way produces not only in individual countries, but also on the worldwide level, in spite of all its shortcomings and deficiencies; we ourselves, inhabitants of the West, obtain extensive advantages from this. Nonetheless, one cannot help but notice that this is a process in constant progression. On the basis of its own dynamic, it constantly seeks to extend itself and to integrate within its functional logic all areas of life to the extent to which they have an economic side, with extensive repercussions also in the area of culture and personal lifestyle. This leads to the extension of economic considerations into all aspects of life. Today we are witnessing this above all in the health care system.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">MARX SAW IT RIGHT</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">More than 150 years ago, Karl Marx clearly analyzed and expressed this, and the relevance of his prognosis is still striking: "The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All the old established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. [. . .] In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. [. . .] The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement in all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, [. . .] compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production" (2).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">For our time, it must be added that, thanks to perfect global organization of ocean cargo shipping, the costs of transporting goods and products are minimal, for which reason long distances are no longer a discouragement, but rather stimulate trade on a worldwide level.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">And it is not extraneous to development, but rather corresponds to its logic, that in the constant search for new sources of profit there should be a constant increase in the financial markets of business based solely on fictitious capital and its multiplication, with the tendency of not taking into account the features of the real economy, and of harming them. Karl Marx saw this as well (3).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The state and law can certainly set limits on the system of capitalism and impose rules on it from the outside, limiting its excesses and unacceptable consequences, to the extent to which the state apparatus, which for its part is bound to the promotion of a pro-growth economy, has the power to do so. And to a certain extent, it does this. Nonetheless, even when it succeeds this is a marginal correction, which must be extorted from the logical functioning of the system, insofar as the latter always aims for the greatest possible deregulation.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">OVERTURNING CAPITALISM FROM ITS FOUNDATIONS</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">So what is capitalism suffering from? It is not suffering only from its excesses and from the greed and egoism of the men operating in it. It suffers from its point of departure, from its functional principle and the power that creates the system. For this reason, it is impossible to heal this illness with marginal remedies; it can be healed only by changing the point of departure.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The extensive individualism in matters of property, which takes as its point of departure and structuring principle the potentially unlimited profit of the individual, considered a natural right not subject to any content guidelines, must be replaced with a normative framework and a strategy of action based on the principle according to which the goods of the earth, meaning nature and the environment, the products of the soil, water and raw materials do not belong to those who are the first to take possession of them and exploit them, but are destined for all men, for the satisfaction of their vital necessities and for the attainment of well-being.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This is a radically different principle; its point of departure and of reference is the solidarity of men in living and competing together. It is from here that the fundamental norms must be deduced on the basis of which both economic and non-economic processes of action are to be shaped (4).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The choice of such a point of departure is not entirely new. It reconnects with an ancient tradition that was lost only at the moment of the passage to the individualism of property and to capitalism. Thomas Aquinas, the great theologian and philosopher of the Middle Ages, explicitly affirms that on the basis of the natural law, meaning the order of nature willed by God, earthly goods are ordered to the satisfaction of the needs of all men. The private property of the individual exists only in the context of this universal destination, and is subordinate to it. It does not belong to the natural law in itself, but is a legislative addition that is justified for practical reasons, because everyone cares more about what belongs to him than about what belongs to everyone, because it is more convenient that everyone should possess and administer things himself, and finally because private property fosters peace among men (5). Then Thomas distinguishes among the ownership, administration, and use of that which is possessed. While the first of these belongs only to the individual, use must take into account the fact that external goods, on the basis of their original destination, are shared, for which reason the person who possesses them must share them voluntarily with the poor (6). For this reason, Thomas believes that stealing is not a sin in the case of extreme necessity (7).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Here a model appears that is contrary to capitalism. A model that starts from other fundamental principles, and in this way also unmasks the inhuman character of capitalism. Solidarity no longer appears as a measure to prevent and compensate for the harmful consequences of an unbridled individualism in matters of property, but as a structuring principle of human coexistence, in the economic realm as well.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This point of departure operates in many ways: attribution of the products of the soil and of natural raw materials; relation with the goods of consumption and the environment, nature, water and air; directive role of labor with respect to capital; limits on the accumulation of property and capital; recognition of other human beings – including future generations – as subjects and partners in the area of use, commerce, and possession, instead of their being objects of possible exploitation.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This leads to a normative framework within which the meaning of personal ownership and use, the guarantee of property can and must have their pragmatic meaning and their function as driving forces of the economic process and its progress. But they remain connected to the primary concept of solidarity, which offers content guidelines and puts limits on an unlimited expansion.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">AFTER MARX, IT IS THE CHURCH'S HOUR</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This is not the place for a detailed presentation of such a theoretical and practical model inspired by the principle of solidarity. The foundations for this are found in the tradition of Christian social doctrine. One must simply awaken them from their Sleeping Beauty slumber in the forest, and make a concerted effort to translate them into practice.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">This social doctrine of the Church, astonished by the unquestionable successes of capitalism, has long taken a rather defensive attitude toward it. It has criticized this on specific points instead of questioning it as such. The current evident collapse of capitalism because of its unlimited and almost unregulated expansion can, and should, allow the social doctrine of the Church a radical contestation of it.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">For this reason, the social magisterium can simply refer back to Pope John Paul II, the most lucid and energetic critic of capitalism after Karl Marx. Already in his first encyclical, he undertook an evaluation of the system as such, of the structures and mechanisms that dominate the global economy in the area of finance and of the value of money, of production, and of commerce. In his view, these have shown themselves to be incapable of responding to the challenges and ethical demands of out time (8). Man "cannot become the slave of things, the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own products" (9).</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">But the new focus of solidarity and the transformation of an extensive system of economic action that, as we have shown, does not take into account the nature and vocation of man, and even contradicts them, does not happen on its own. It requires a state power capable of acting and deciding, that passes beyond the mere function of guaranteeing the development of the economic system and of verifying the balance of forces, but actually takes on responsibility for the common good through limiting, guiding, and even refusing the pursuit of economic power, at the same time seeking constantly to reduce social inequalities.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It is impossible to realize such a transformation with simple coordination activity. But where can such a state system be found? In the face of the global economic interconnections, the power of the national state is no longer sufficient; it will be defeated by the economic forces working on a worldwide level. Besides, it is impossible to organize a state system on a worldwide level, under the form of a global state. This can be done only for and in limited areas, which are in relation with each other and work together. So the appeal is addressed in the first place to Europe. But will it have the will and the power to do it?</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">NOTES</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(1) H. Freyer, "Theorie des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters", Deutsche Verlag-Amstalt, Stuttgart, 1956, p. 79ss.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(2) K. Marx, F. Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party," Charles H. Kerr & Company, Chicago, 1908, pp. 17-19.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(3) K. Marx, "Das Kapital", vol. III, c. 25, Dietz-Verlag, Berlin, 1956, pp. 436-452.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(4) Cfr. E.-W. Böckenförde, "Ethische und politische Grundsatzfragen zur Zeit", in Id., "Kirche und christilicher Glaube in der Herausforderungen der Zeit", Münster, 2007, pp. 362-366.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(5) Thomas Aquinas, "Summa Theologiae", IIa-IIae, q. 66, art. 2 e art. 7.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(6) Ibid, q. 66, art. 2, resp.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(7) Ibid, art. 7, resp.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(8) Cf. John Paul II, "Redemptor Hominis", 1979, no. 16. Cf. also: Id., "Laborem exercens", 1981; "Centesimus annus", 1991.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">(9) John Paul II, "Redemptor Hominis", 1979, n. 16.</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">__________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The journal of the Sacred Heart fathers of Bologna which published, in Italy, the article by Ernst-Wolfgang Böckenförde, in issue no. 10 of 2009:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://www.ilregno.it/" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Il Regno</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">__________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The three socioeconomic encyclicals of John Paul II:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0214/_INDEX.HTM" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Centesimus Annus, 1991</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0223/_INDEX.HTM" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 1987</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0217/_INDEX.HTM" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Laborem Exercens, 1981</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">__________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Joseph Ratzinger's conference in 1985 on the Church and the economy:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/209788" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Market Economy and Ethics</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">__________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The article by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in "Il Sole 24 Ore," May 19, 2009:</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/SoleOnLine4/dossier/Economia%20e%20Lavoro/2009/lezioni-per-il-futuro/19-maggio/pil-modelli-sviluppo.shtml?uuid=542ceca4-4447-11de-a051-af559783c70e" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> La cicogna non fa aumentare più il PIL</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">And the article from www.chiesa dedicated to two of his recent articles in "L'Osservatore Romano":</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"> </span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><a href="http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1337349bdc4.html?eng=y" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>> Financial Crisis. The Good News Is Coming from the Vatican</strong></a><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">_________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">English translation by </span><a href="mailto:traduttore@hotmail.com" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-decoration-line: none;"><strong>Matthew Sherry</strong></a><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.</span><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span></p><p style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; margin: 2px 0px 10px; padding: 0px;"></p><p><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /><span style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">__________</span><br style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" /></p><div align="right" style="background-color: #f0f0e1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">5.6.2009 </div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-41759297195233985922021-11-09T00:15:00.004-08:002021-11-09T00:16:11.026-08:00Fred Lawrence on Ravasi<div class="h7 bg" role="listitem" style="clear: both; max-width: 100000px; outline: none; padding-bottom: 0px;" tabindex="-1"><div class="Bk" style="border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-radius: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(239, 239, 239); border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-top-style: solid; border-width: 0px; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; position: relative; width: 1079px;"><div class="G3 G2 afm" style="border-bottom-color: rgba(100, 121, 143, 0.12); border-radius: 0px; border-top-color: rgba(100, 121, 143, 0.12); border-top-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0px 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><div id=":2n5"><div class="adn ads" data-legacy-message-id="17cf6b9ebd7af3ab" data-message-id="#msg-f:1715708312579404715" style="border-left-style: none; display: flex; padding: 0px;"><div class="gs" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px; width: 1007px;"><div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">04.11.2021</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">Dear Fred,<br clear="all" /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">I am attaching something by Ravasi where he mentions Lonergan as one of his great teachers...</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">how are you and Sue? well, I hope.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">I was in Jerusalem recently, and remembered you and Sue with Vernet!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">wishes and prayers,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ivo</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large; text-size-adjust: auto;">06.11.2021</div></div><div dir="ltr"><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Dear Ivo,</span><br /><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">It is so good to hear from you! It's been a while. We hope you've missed catching COVID 19. So far we've had good luck, with the help of Pfizer!</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Thanks for sending the Ravasi piece. He certainly does sound like he operates in the vein of Lonergan. I very much appreciate his understanding of the Jesus of the Gospels, critically<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>and<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>as good news! His closing salvo--especially the Szymborska quote--certainly rings true for Sue and me.</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">After undergoing the crisis of chronic heart failure and chronic obstruction of the pulmonary system, I am back teaching for my 50th year, relieved to be doing so live instead of on ZOOM. What a difference that makes! Sue is pretty much the same, with the undiagnosable tinnitus in her ears running on down through her torso, together will loss of much memory of the past, so that when she hears of something familiar it rings a bell, and she sort of remembers when I remind her. The loss of the ability to concentrate for long, has made reading longer articles or books pretty much out of the question, but day-to-day, it's pretty normal. So keep us in your prayers, please.</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Your mention of Fr Vernet brings back happy memories of being with you in Jerusalem. I cannot help recalling with a chuckle his answer to the question whether he's learned Arabic: "Shweh, Sweh." And I often think of the last line of his prayer to St Joseph: "Help us to be silent."</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">When I talk to my old Roman classmates, and people I was in the seminary with in California, there is a lot of consternation about how so many of the younger priests and seminarians pretty much reject Vatican II, and have returned to the old "circle the wagons" approach to the world, and have returned to the notion of the Holy Eucharist as a transaction between Jesus and the individual, with no sense Thomas Aquinas's teaching that the "<i>res</i> of this sacrament is the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>unitas mystici corporis</i>, along with Jesus crucified, risen, exalted as the Head of the entire human race. Have you encountered this problem yet? Jeremy Blackwood, who teaches in the Milwaukee seminary, has said that both old and young seminarians, are mainly comfortable with Neoscholastic philosophy/theology and the Roman Catechism. I remember Abp. Diarmuid McCollough saying after the vote in Ireland to embrace same-sex marriage, that "the Irish are the most catechized and least evangelized people in the world!" Many who have to do with religious education in the States, however, say to the ones they are training, "Don't teach catechism, teach Jesus!"</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Love,</span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="comic sans ms, sans-serif" style="font-size: medium;">Fred & Sue </span></div></div><div class="yj6qo ajU" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 2px 0px 0px; outline: none; padding: 10px 0px; width: 22px;"><div aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Show trimmed content" class="ajR" data-tooltip="Show trimmed content" id=":2jn" role="button" style="background-color: #e8eaed; border-bottom-left-radius: 5.5px; border-bottom-right-radius: 5.5px; border-radius: 5.5px; border-top-left-radius: 5.5px; border-top-right-radius: 5.5px; border: none; clear: both; line-height: 6px; 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color: #5f6368; font-size: 0.75rem; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.3px; line-height: 20px; margin: inherit; max-width: calc(100% - 8px); overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap;"><span class="qu" role="gridcell" tabindex="-1" translate="no"><span class="gD" data-hovercard-id="ivo.coelho@gmail.com" email="ivo.coelho@gmail.com" name="Ivo Coelho" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: #202124; display: inline; font-size: 0.875rem; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 20px; vertical-align: top;"><span style="position: relative; vertical-align: top;">Ivo Coelho</span></span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="go" style="color: #555555; vertical-align: top;"><span aria-hidden="true"><</span>ivo.coelho@gmail.com<span aria-hidden="true">></span></span></span></h3></td></tr></tbody></table></td><td class="gH bAk" style="align-items: center; color: #222222; display: block; margin: 0px; max-height: 20px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"><div class="gK" style="align-items: center; display: flex; padding: 0px;"><span alt="9 Nov 2021, 09:06" class="g3" id=":2lz" role="gridcell" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: auto; color: #5f6368; display: block; font-size: 0.75rem; letter-spacing: 0.3px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; vertical-align: top;" tabindex="-1" title="9 Nov 2021, 09:06">09:06 (7 minutes ago)</span><div aria-checked="false" aria-label="Not starred" class="zd bi4" data-tooltip="Not starred" jslog="20511; u014N:cOuCgd,Kr2w4b;" role="checkbox" style="-webkit-user-select: none; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: 20px; margin-left: 20px; outline: 0px; user-select: none;" tabindex="0"><span class="T-KT" style="align-items: center; border: none; display: inline-flex; height: 20px; justify-content: center; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center; top: 0px; transition: opacity 0.15s cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1) 0s; width: 20px; z-index: 0;"></span></div></div></td><td class="gH" style="align-items: center; color: #222222; display: flex; margin: 0px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"></td><td class="gH acX bAm" rowspan="2" style="align-items: center; color: #222222; display: block; margin: 0px; max-height: 20px; text-align: right; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;"><div aria-label="Reply" class="T-I J-J5-Ji T-I-Js-IF aaq T-I-ax7 L3" data-tooltip="Reply" role="button" style="-webkit-user-drag: none; align-items: center; border-radius: 2px 0px 0px 2px; border: none; box-shadow: none; color: #444444; cursor: pointer; display: inline-flex; font-size: 0.875rem; height: 20px; justify-content: center; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; min-width: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: center; user-select: none; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><img alt="" class="hB T-I-J3" role="button" src="https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gif" style="-webkit-background-size: 24px 882px; 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u014N:xr6bB; 4:W251bGwsbnVsbCxbXV0." style="direction: ltr; font-size: 0.875rem; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><div class="a3s aiL" id=":2mx" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 1.5; overflow: hidden;"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">dear Fred, </div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">good to hear from you. it seems you have been through a rough period, healthwise. a prayer for you and Sue.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">yes, the problem that you mention regarding seminarians and young religious is very much present - more in Europe and N. America, probably, and in some parts of S. America. though I must not forget that also in the East... there is a very strong anti-pope francis trend..</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">i love the quote from Aquinas! thanks!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">we have our noses to the grind, with the task of revising our Ratio fundamentalis ... but one day at a time.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">once again, wishes to Sue and prayers for you both and your family.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">and yes, I am well, thank God. we've been to Guatemala, Colombia, Kenya and Israel recently, and, apart from the increased complication and complexity of travel, I am well.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I pass by St Pauls inside the Walls now and then and think of Sue and you... they never did get back to me about the memorial service.</div><span class="im" style="color: #500050;"><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ivo (09.11.2021)</div><div><br /></div><div><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-37600489169094287782021-10-31T02:51:00.001-07:002021-10-31T02:51:17.461-07:00Gilson on Descartes: "indisciplinatus"<p>From Ivo Coelho, RORTY’S ANTI-FOUNDATIONALISM AND FIDES ET RATIO :</p><div>There should be no difficulty, I think, in agreeing with Rorty’s attack on Cartesian subjectivity. Again, there should be no difficulty in agreeing with Rorty’s attack on the Cartesian search for apodicticity. Rorty quotes Dewey and Wittgenstein to the effect that a natural quest for understanding has been run together, by modern philosophers, with an unnatural quest for certainty. <span style="color: #2b00fe;">Even more interesting however is Rorty quoting Gilson on Descartes’ unwarranted extension of an excessive ideal of certitude to all spheres: “From the point of view of medieval philosophy, Descartes plays the role of the <i>indisciplinatus</i> – someone who takes pride in insisting, no matter what discipline is in question, on the same degree of certainty, no matter how inappropriate. In a word, Descartes no longer recognizes an intermediary between the true and the false; his philosophy is the radical elimination of the notion of the ‘probable.’” </span></div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-10452584702328038362021-01-10T23:23:00.003-08:002021-01-10T23:23:41.133-08:00Goa University Library<p><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-size-adjust: auto;">*Did you know that*... anyone can visit and refer to the Goa U. Library at</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-size-adjust: auto;">a modest fee of Rs400 per year? Dr Gopakumar is at 91588 35495 or</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><a href="mailto:librarian@unigoa.ac.in" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" target="_blank">librarian@unigoa.ac.in</a><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.org/details/library-gopakumar&source=gmail&ust=1610436046614000&usg=AFQjCNGprXSWPRNvGBh5cgQ4czf40HFiKw" href="https://archive.org/details/library-gopakumar" rel="noreferrer" style="color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/li<wbr></wbr>brary-gopakumar</a><br style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;" /><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; text-size-adjust: auto;">--</span></p>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-61943121509621132822021-01-07T23:56:00.001-08:002021-01-07T23:56:15.309-08:00Basil Xavier, Ethnophilosophy<p> </p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="color: #222222; font-size: x-small;"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">basilxavier@gmail.com</span></span></p><p><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-size: small;">Dear Fr Ivo Coelho,</span></p><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">New year Wishes from Fr Dr BASIL XAVIER, SJ</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">I've met you in some of our ACPR meetings but you may not remember me.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">Just to introduce myself, I'm a Jesuit priest for Madurai Province, teaching philosophy at both UG and PG levels in Arul Anandar College, Madurai since 1998. (Kindly see my Short CV in the attached file)</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">Now I'm interested in a Post Doctoral Fellowship on Lonergan in Lonergan Institute, Boston <wbr></wbr>College, USA. I know you are the only Indian Expert on Lonergan. My Ph.D is on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>Ethnophilosophy or Folk philosophy or Dalit Philosophy</b>.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">Kindly see the attached files for my recently published two books.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>Will you suggest to me some possible topics</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>connecting Lonergan and Ethnophilosophy? You also talk about the transcultural aspect of Lonergan's philosophy in your book.</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">I'll be grateful to you. I know you must be very busy now. Will you spend a few minutes for me dear Ivo? </div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">I'll be happy if you reply as soon as possible as the deadline is Jan 15, 2021. Please Fr..</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><br /></div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">Love,</div><div style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">BASIL SJ</div><p><br /></p><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Dear Basil,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">thank you for your mail and your inquiry. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I respond very briefly in the midst of other things.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">The one thing that comes to me is: as part of the DATA of theology, Lonergan sees also the lived experience of people - the experience of the recognized saints and mystics, but also of ordinary people. I think that could be a fruitful line of inquiry. the one who has opened up this topic, if I am not mistaken, is Robert Doran. He, but also Fred Lawrence, are very sensitive to the political social economic aspects of life and of theology. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">You might find something in Method in Theology, ch. 11: Foundations, section 7: special theological categories. On CWL 14:272 he speaks of deriving categories from religious interiority, not only individual but also as community and history, and keep in mind the fourth set of categories, which anticipate that in the data we can expect to find not only authenticity but also many manifestations of unauthenticity, and the fifth set which moves on the assumption that God has intervened in this history ("progress, decline, redemption").</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I guess you could read the whole of MT, in the sense that it champions a dialectical method of doing theology, a method that is "open to all comers", each one working from his own standpoint, with the differing viewpoints meeting in the functional specialty dialectic. in that sense, Lonergan sees method not as an individual affair but as done in team, group, community, and in fact with as much diversity as possible... within the church, but also within the larger society with differing religious, moral, intellectual standpoints, but also cultural, social, historical, psychological, and ethnic differences.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">you might find helpful also the whole discussion of the biases, fundamentally in Insight: individual, group and general bias. the discussion on group and general bias, with the shorter and longer cycles of decline, is most interesting, it was a fundamental part of Lonergan's philosophy of history, and I think in the background were Hegel and Marx (see esp. group bias). General bias is, I think, peculiarly Lonergan's take on things; it would apply very much to the area of ecology, because it is the tendency of all human beings, moving by practicality and sometimes by greed, to take the short term rather than the long term view, to concentrate on the here and now to the disregard of the larger picture. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">I hope that might stimulate you!</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">wishes for your work. you could consult Fred Lawrence himself, or else Doran, or both.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></div><p></p><div data-smartmail="gmail_signature" dir="ltr" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p></p><div class="gmail_default" style="color: #0b5394; font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ivo</div>Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-41812759260071749802020-12-27T23:22:00.002-08:002020-12-27T23:22:11.539-08:00Ryliskyte, LigitaRyliskyte, Ligita. Cur Deus Cruciatus?: Lonergan’s Law of the Cross and the Transpositions of “Justice over Power.” PhD Thesis. Boston College, 2020.
The basic question of this dissertation is, “Why a crucified God?” The history of this question is traced through strategically chosen increments in Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas,
and Lonergan. Each contributes in some important way to the development of a tradition that focuses on the choice of divine love and wisdom to answer evil through the justice of the cross rather than by coercion. In light of these earlier transpositions and Lonergan’s own development, this dissertation examines the meaning and justice of the cross, as epitomized
in Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, and re-contextualizes this law in relation to our collective responsibility in and for history. This teleological re-reading of Lonergan’s soteriology brings to the forefront that a fitting remedy to the problem of a dis-ordered love is a re-ordering and (re-)ordered love, not coercive power. According to Lonergan’s Law of the Cross, the intrinsic intelligibility of redemption is the transformation of evil into good by love. This love, caritas ordinata et ordinans, is understood by analogy with the antecedent offer of diffusive friendship and by analogy with sacramental penance. The restoration of right order through the cross is fitting because, if the laws of nature and history are not suspended, retaliation would only multiply the objective surd. The constructive part of this dissertation further specifies ontological conditions for the fittingness of the cross by bringing the lex crucis into dialogue with Lonergan’s general theory of historical process. In continuity with the emerging world order (as subject to classical, statistical, dialectical, and genetic laws), the cross manifests an orderly communication of divine friendship to sinners. Correspondingly, the justice of the cross regards, not retributive justice, but the possibility of justice among sinners. This possibility, it is argued, is inaugurated by Christ’s transformation of suffering into the means of a new finality in history, the probabilities of which are decisively shifted in the cross event and concretely realized through the emergent agape network, the higher integration of the human good of order through the whole Christ, head and members, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The justice of the cross, then, is an emergent agapic justice which proceeds from the dynamic state of being in love with God as its principle and is realized in a dialectic unification of all things in Christ, constituting the “cruciform” transformation of human
September 2020 5 (inter-) subjectivity and the recovery of human progress as ordered to the eschatologically
definitive reign of God.
Ryliskyte, Ligita. “Conversion: Falling into Friendship Like No Other.” Theological Studies, 81/2 (2020) 370-93.
In the context of contemporary vicissitudes, this article
examines how Lonergan’s grasp of the meaning of
redemption illuminates our understanding of Christian
conversion. Lonergan’s Law of the Cross implies that the
effectiveness of Christian conversion hinges on one’s
antecedent willingness to undertake suffering for the sake
of the transformation of evil into good. His analogies for
Christ’s salvific work with the sacrament of reconciliation
and with friendship further clarify the christomorphic, penitential, and community-building character of conversion, which proceeds from the total, transformative, and diffusive falling into friendship with God.Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-22014049627737511842020-06-08T06:56:00.002-07:002020-06-08T06:56:39.463-07:00Fred Lawrence on "Lonergan on Authenticity"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="qu" role="gridcell" tabindex="-1"><span class="gD" data-hovercard-id="frederick.lawrence@bc.edu" data-hovercard-owner-id="83" email="frederick.lawrence@bc.edu" name="Frederick Lawrence" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; color: #202124; display: inline; font-size: 0.875rem; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.2px; line-height: 20px; vertical-align: top;">Frederick Lawrence</span></span></h3>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Dear Ivo,</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I just finished reading your paper, "Lonergan on Authnticity." I must say, it is superb in every respect, especially the comparison and contrast between 'genuineness' and 'authenticity,' and then your way of showing how the latter sublates the former.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">I also appreciated very much your careful tracing of the step-by-step evolution of his thought on authenticity through the different texts cited, proving once again that "concepts have dates.." </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Then the way you used the elements underlying authenticity toclarify the relationship between philosophy and theology.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Penultimately, as regards functional specialization, with respect to the varying role of conversion in the first phase while hearing the Word may be done in the context of faith, it is also completely valid to consider it as data to be supplied by the different modes of research, and then interpreted, integrated on the level of history, and discussed dialectically (rather than apologetically or eristically), and raised not simply by way of moving from the descriptive to the explanatory plane but through horizon-analysis to the criteria related variously to the intellectual, moral and religious conversions, and on into the direct discourse of foundations, doctrines, systematics, and communications.. I loved the underscoring of dialectic and foundations as the core of theology. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Finally: initially, the comparison between unauthentic and authentic objectivities via the world of immediacy and the world mediated by meaning, and concluding with the reference to 'spiritual exercises' capped off by that lovely quotation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Perhaps, the part concerning the prelude to what you had to say regarding theology ought to be an appendix to the Accompaniment document. but I suppose it is too late for that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Providentially/ coincidentally, this morning we received from Frank Braio, part of the closest of his associates</span><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;"> as I suppose you are, too, the news that </span><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Phil McShane is struggling with the consequences of stage 4 cancer. It made me feel that I was honoring what he stands for while reading your paper.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">As you must have already thought, Pentacostal fire has taken on a whole new meaning in the U.S. during this past week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">In Him, </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Fred & Sue</span></div>
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Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-65159070980989142282020-04-10T21:48:00.000-07:002020-04-10T21:48:31.209-07:00Ligita Ryliskyta, Cur Deus Cruciatus <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Fred Lawrence - Coelho, 10.04.2020:<br />
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<span style="font-family: comic sans ms, sans-serif; font-size: medium;">In accord with the season, on Wednesday afternoon, Ligita Ryliskyta, a Lithuanian medical Doctor, defended<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Cur Deus Cruciatus</i> </span><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">on the Law of the Cross in Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, and Lonergan--</span><span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">the most extraordinary dissertation I have ever been associated with! She is also a member of the Sisters of the Eucharist in Jesus, a community founded by a Lithuanian Jesuit during the Communist take-over of that country. Ligita said that the community was very courageously involved in the underground resistance at that time. Her father's family--as "enemies of the regime"--were put in a vegetable cart and driven 4,000 miles to Siberia. When they left, her father was 5 years old, and when the family survivors finally returned, he was 16.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Coelho - Lawrence, 10.04.2020:</span></div>
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this Lithuanian doctorate: is it really the best you have seen? or just extraordinary in some special sense? I am curious. last year I visited Lithuania, it was a glorious autumn week, I can't tell you how beautiful the country was. and then finding the old Indo-European gods there... the ones mentioned in the Vedas... </div>
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<span style="font-family: "comic sans ms", sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Lawrence - Coelho, 10.04.2020:</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-size-adjust: auto;">Yes, it was by far the best ... and I've been involved in quite a few splendid ones. Her research on Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas, and the headings under which she interpreted and documented their specific contributions to the genesis of the comprehensive intelligibility that Lonergan called the Law of the Cross were just amazing. Then, after presenting her understanding of Lonergan's explanatory elucidation of his theses on redemption in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">DVI<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-size-adjust: auto;">and the now published notes on the Redemption, which are much more expansive than the theses, she synthesized the way they stand in relation to Lonergan's tripartite philosophy of history, as well as its implications spelled out in light of emergent probability in<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-size-adjust: auto;">Insight,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium; text-size-adjust: auto;">Ch. 15 on genetic method. On top of all that, she surveyed every stream of liberation and political theology, which she took seriously, and while never selling short their various contributions, brought out how the explanatory account made possible by Lonergan could aid in strengthening each and every one of their more descriptive approaches--something she would be able to do with serene wisdom, if she felt called to do so.</span></div>
Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-1747763514056171182020-04-10T00:26:00.002-07:002020-04-10T00:26:40.799-07:00Slavoj Zizek and John Milbank<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Zizek S. - Milbank J.,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>La mostruosità di Cristo.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i></span><i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Paradosso o dialettica?</span></i><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">, Transeuropa, Massa 2010 (Originale: Zizek S. - Milbank J.,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>The Monstruosity of Christ</i>, The Mit Press, London 2009)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Symbol; font-size: 11pt;">·<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Zizek S. - Milbank J.,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i>San Paolo reloaded. Sul futuro del cristianesimo</i>, Transeuropa, Massa 2012</span></div>
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Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-10086301241217606722020-04-09T23:59:00.000-07:002020-04-09T23:59:04.889-07:00Byung-Chul Han and Lonergan on correlation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">By chance, Rossano Sala. The visit to his mezzanine office. The gift of his book, <i>L’umano possible</i> (his PhD thesis), and Byung-Chul Han’s <i>L’espulsione dell’Altro</i> (the author is Korean, writes in German).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">Han 10 attacks correlation: correlation means: If A, then often B. But one does not know why it is like that. Correlation is the most primitive form of knowledge, which is not even able to identify the causal relation, the relation between cause and effect. It is like that. The question about the why of things becomes superfluous. Nothing is therefore, understood. But to know is to understand. In this way the big data make thought superfluous. We entrust ourselves without hesitation to <i>It’s like that</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">The paragraph begins this way: even the greatest accumulation of information (the big data) yields a very reduced knowledge. On the basis of big data, correlations are identified. [Algorithms?]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">But put this in relation to Lonergan’s take on correlation. L does not despise correlation. And he does not identify “cause” with “efficient cause.” He finds place – and here he is so unlike Heidegger, and perhaps now Han – for the knowledge that characterizes empirical science. He finds place for correlation. Empirical science is based on correlations. Pure empirical science, as opposed to technology, is not directly interested in efficient causes, it concentrates on formal cause – which is the form of the thing, the object of understanding…. Now that is a very different approach.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">See <i>Insight</i>, CWL3:101: immanent intelligibility, formal cause. P. 62: correlations, measurements, things related to one another. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">Lonergan's great distinction, which I have not found in others, is between experiential and explanatory conjugates. Experiential conjugates: things as related to us: colours as seen, sounds as heard, etc. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">Explanatory conjugates: things as related among themselves. Here the key step is measurement. the difference between heat as felt and temperature, which is a correlation of correlations. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">When people like Han ignore this, they are indulging themselves on the level of description, however sophisticated. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">Then of course there is a difference between Aristotelian science and modern science.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "Tempus Sans ITC";"><span style="font-size: large;">Han’s notes figure Heidegger and Scheler. Baudrillard, Kant, Nietzsche. Hegel, Adorno, Blanchot. Lévinas, Sartre, Zizek, Foucault. Kafka, Orwell.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2684165001007042650.post-69737583585557145432020-04-09T05:45:00.003-07:002020-04-09T05:45:43.393-07:00Gift<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Philosophy and theology of gift: from Rossano Sala:<br />
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Zygmunt Baumann<br />
Slavoj Zizek<br />
Byung-Chul Han, <i>L'espulsione dell'Altro </i>(Milano: Nottetempo, 2017)<br />
Sala, <i>L'umano possibile. Esplorazioni in uscita della modernità </i>(Roma: LAS, 2012). Publication of PhD thesis in Milan. Preface by Sequeri.<br />
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Sala speaks of the anthropology of gift that is necessary for a theology of vocation.<br />
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The problem is the Cartesian individualism underlying Western culture.<br />
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The rediscovery of the person. Person in the Trinity is total gift, relation as substance.<br />
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Ivo Coelhohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16013091164713506463noreply@blogger.com0