The Human Question

Below is an excerpt from a letter to a bro, I think you make a great point and do so in very few words, and I appreciate that: 1. God does not seem (to you) to be just, given natural and man-made disasters 2. God instead seems ironic, given the same disasters. You make an excellent reply, and it deserves a reply.  Here is my initial attempt. God has indeed created a world in which disasters, both great and small naturally take place, but in doing so God has not been unjust. Could God have created a physical world in which no such disasters occur?  Perhaps yes.  In fact, it may be the case -- if we live in a multiverse -- that such a world may exist.  I don't know, nor do I think that anyone else who walks this earth can know. I do notice, however, that the world in which we exist... with all it's pain and sufffering... is beautiful when considered as a whole. I note, furthermore, that a world in which no such pain and suffering existed would be...

Isn't there an element of discovery in every invention, and an element of invention in every discovery?

It might be helpful to compare how the full blown Catholic understanding, say, of Mary developed out of the Scriptural and early Christian understanding of Mary with the way an oak tree develops from an acorn.  In each case, the before and after look different but are essentially the same.  And one naturally leads to the other just as promise leads naturally (on a good day) to fulfillment.

... I propose that if we have a good reason to seek justice, then we have a good reason to believe in God. The same claim from another angle: if one denies that there is a God, then one has undermined belief in justice.  An atheist may insists that there is such a thing as justice, but such a claim is ultimately inconsistent.  Granted he or she won't see that inconsistency, but it will nevertheless be there.  Let me clarify a couple of things. First: I am NOT saying that one must FIRST believe in God or else he will have no reason to be just.  Atheists often misrepresent the theistic position in that way and then spend a lot of time pointing out how some atheists are ethical.  But such a fact does not weaken my thesis: it merely shows that atheists, like all other human beings, can be inconsistent.  I'll explain below.  The following analogy will help make my point.  Imagine a deluded science major who insisted that one must fir...

I am deleting personal parts of the letter: My proposal was that the power of Christ is really and truly present in and through the sacraments.  And that Christ calls us to seek Him together and through each other.  It is interesting that when St. Paul encountered Christ, the Lord said to Him, "Paul, why do you persecute me?"  Paul was persecuting Christians, not Christ.  Unless Christians are in some way Christ.  If Paul persecuted Christ by persecuting Christians, then we encounter Christ when we encounter Christians. I propose that it is exceedingly rare that anyone encounters Christ alone without first having encountered Christ through others.  Conversion in solitude is not "plan A" if you will.  Otherwise, Christ would not have bothered to say, "where ever two or more are gathered... there I am in the their midst."  And the Acts wouldn't mention the fact that the first Christians worshipped together. As for statues and t...

To answer this, try what scientists call an "operational definition" of worship. For an Evangelical, it consists of speaking words, singing songs, etc. For a Catholic in the Latin rite, it consists of adoring the Body, Blood, soul, and diivinity of Christ the Lord. In other words, Evangelical worship is, by Catholic standards, mediocre... even though it may surely be heartfelt. Given that mediocrity, when Catholics comport in the same way to Mary, it looks like doing something in regard to her that should be directed exclusively to God. I think the ecumenical thing to do is to invite an Evangelical to fall down (together with me), prostrate in worship of God... It won't feel right (I predict) because there is no Bodily Presence of the Lord.  So he or she may decline.  In fact I may not feel that it is appropriate, except before Jesus in the Eucharist.

He claimed both that Catholics rely upon a priest to mediate between them and God AND that God is bodily.  His reason for the former:  the passages in the Old Testament where God is depicted bodily.  Walking in the Garden with Adam; as a Pilar of Fire guiding the Israelites; etc. It occurred to me that his two points are related. But before describing that point, let me add that Catholics believe that they are relating directly to Jesus Christ in the Mass, even though the priest does play a priestly role in helping make Christ present bodily. After all, if God is never present to us via a mediator, then when it says that God is truly present via these phenomena, then God is identical with them. On the other hand, affirming that identity is to go against the claim that God is unchanging.  And if God is bodily then God could not be a Trinity. Solution: God is truly present to His People in the Old Testament via His Creation.  But that opens the door to a...

It just occurred to me that we come up with the concept of a line (as found in geometry: i.e., perfectly straight, with zero deviation, no matter how precisely you consider it) by thinking teleologically, that is by intending to produce straightness when engaging in craftsmanship. Interesting because the math consideration of nature is supposed to prescind from the consideration of purposes in nature... even though the purely mathematical objects being applied to nature may themselves be constituted through goal-directed activities (is there any other kind of activity?).

An important premise in Engel v Vitale (as well as in Lee v. Weisman) is the claim that the vulnerability of children deserves special consideration.  What would not constitute compulsion for an adult WOULD do so for a child (even the children of parents who don't mind such compulsion).  That point is integral to the argument that would prohibit school prayer while not touching the practice of having chaplains lead Congress in prayer and the like. If the vulnerability of children is sufficient to render this sort of judgment against school prayer in Engel, then it should also suffice to render special regulation of pornography as such (and not merely as obscenity, i.e., as offensive).  The vulnerability of children to porn... even the children of parents who don't care about that vulnerability merits state protection. The analogy made above lacks the following parallel. In one case the vulnerability is to action by the State, in the other it is vulnerability to action...