Just a short post, because we ran out of time.
The unstated point of yesterday's post is that my avocational interest in philosophy has never wavered, but that it's been a wrong and windy road from there to here.
Viewing it from past to future, it looks like I was hacking my way through a dense jungle with a denser blade, but if we turn the telos-scope around, it looks more like a con-spiracy (breathing-together) of grace (or of some other vertical breeze, whatever we call it).
Come to think of it, in the b ʘʘk, I just called the latter (↓), because I didn't want to make any assumptions about it; whatever we call it, it is that experience-near tingle that intermingles with (↑) and meets us halfway.
If I'm not mistaken, this generic nonlocal assistance is called "operating" or "prevenient" grace, as it is anterior to our conscious cooperation with it. It seems that every man is given sufficient grace to arrive at the truth, or we'd never arrive there.
If it weren't operating, then there would indeed be no path back from there to here. Rather, each man would have to hack his own way through the ontological jungle, with no common endpoint.
As it pertains to epistemology, we'd all exist in our own relativistic silo, each his own philosophy department, every man condemned to eternal tenure.
But there is an end, which is where we must begin, even if we don't know it the first time 'round.
In other words, let's say I don't know anything about anything, which is precisely what I knew at age 25: nothing. I would like to know what's going on.
Where do we begin? In hindsight, I'm gonna say that even asking this question -- so long as it asked honestly, persistently, and selflessly -- is already a consequence of operating grace.
This same grace prevents us from accepting the many partial truths we encounter along the way as final.
Rather, we recognize that half-, or three-quarters, or even ninety-nine and a-half won't do (https://youtu.be/yhX4liVtuCc).
Theosis or bust!
Furthermore, I'm gonna say that the Incarnation is the last word -- the last possible and actual word -- on this (↓) not only meeting us halfway, but all the way and thensome.
It is precisely this grace that is on offer, but not without our free cooperation.
Which is also a grace in the overall circular scheme of things.
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This same grace prevents us from accepting the many partial truths we encounter along the way as final.
From the merely human side, the science is never settled.
the Incarnation is the last word -- the last possible and actual word -- on this (↓) not only meeting us halfway, but all the way and thensome.
Indeed; I shudder to think what my life would be were that not the truth.
When he is stripped of the Christian tunic and the Classical toga, there is nothing left of the European but a pale-skinned barbarian.
On the one hand, it seems as though the Europeans could use a little more of that old barbarian spirit; on the other, maybe they'd only use it to do more of this.
It is truly dumbfounding that there are enough parents willing to do this "for" their kids that there are specialized clinics in big hospitals. On the other, well, having stopped believing in God they will believe almost anything, apparently including the belief that allowing their children to be mutilated and scarred for life is somehow better than the alternative.
I did not expect to find Wilson Pickett in this post, but it works. And Pickett is right, 99 and 1/2 just won't do from us.
It's not only that people believe grotesque these lies, but that there is a mysterious force that encloses them in the lie and prevents recognition of truth. Z Man touches on the phenomenon in today's post.
Wilson Pickett also took the phrase "midnight hour" from a famous gospel song -- something about being visited by the Holy Ghost at midnight.
Midnight Hour. Kind of wish our homilies were like this.
Kind of wish our homilies were like this.
Indeed, and you gotta admit, it is a joyful noise!
"the Incarnation is the last word". It is the first and the last - the Alpha and Omega.
It is the purpose of the Incarnation that true conservatism is meant to conserve for all humanity, present and future. From there, it is each soul to believe or reject.
Fr. Ripperger today: "The Earth is like the intersection between Heaven and Hell, and how much it's like Heaven is up to us, and how much like Hell is up to us."
The natural and the supernatural are not overlapping planes, but intertwined threads.
One more good one" "The diabolic principle is anything but God."
Demons are smarter than man -- they're the first to recognize God.
Another good one on rejecting one's God-given task in life, because it touches on feminism, trannyism, an awful lot of -isms if you get down to it:
"When they rejected their task, that task was in God's image and likeness in some fashion; so that when they rejected that task, they actually rejected who and what they are, their actual nature. ... As a result of that... it was a perfect act of self-hatred."
Words I never imagined repeating in any form whatsoever: Interesting interview between Bishop Barron and Shia LaBeouf
The fact that he was roped into playing Padre Pio definitely falls into the category of ?!
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