The Human Question

Theology of the body starts with a story of how Adam and Eve discovered themselves simply by looking at each other.  Upon seeing their respective mate, each of them intuited that both were meant for complete mutual self-giving.  This intuition may be very good, but the account at how we get at it needs to be filled out with an account of how what comes intuitively in the Genesis  story comes about in us only gradually through practices originating from a social context.  The use of the  Genesis story to theologize about sexuality allows us to talk very directly about how a husband and wife relate to each other.  The man and woman in the story not only recognize not only their complementary sexual differences, but also their need and capacity to dedicate themselves to each other--or to put it in language more like John Paul II's: they recognize and desire to realize their capacity for a communion of persons.  But that communion requires communication, and communication requires a co

What if a future technology were to allow humans to program their desires?  Would it be a legitimate exercise of autonomy to choose to drink alcohol in dangerous amounts?  To engage in mass murder (assuming that one could also take precautions that it could not be carried out)?  To be a slave to others?  To do nothing but count blades of grass? No. Why?

That's all that I need to say.

If Einstein was a Spinozan, then he did not accept falsifiability as a necessary condition for intelligibility or veracity.

My argument from agency is Augustinian inasmuch as--after establishing that our knowledge of the rest of nature is in a sense anthropometric, it establishes that we are measured by another.

That question is, are we able to produce anything new?  That is, creativity is the best evidence of human freedom.

First start with a proof from agency, and point out how in humans (qua microcosms) the nonrational is subject to the rational.  Then talk about plain old things moving about and ask causal questions about them, and ask: does the rational come from the non-rational or vice versa?

Okay, _____, I just finished grading yesterday, so I'm happy to return to our conversation. And yes, bro Steve White, Pascal's Wager, figures in quite well here. Especially when combined with William James' "The Will to Believe." But lets get back to the conversation we were having. First of all you have me contradicting myself, saying at one time that anything that can't be explained by nature is a miracle and then saying at another time that some things that cannot be explained by nature are not miracles. I don't remember saying either of these precisely as you have stated them. But I do remember saying that an event's not being explainable by natural processes is ONE of the characteristics of a miracle. There's more to it than that.  1st description of an event: Suppose something really, really inexplicable happens: the sun appears to move in a swirling fashion and come closer to earth, so that it's seen and reported as having behaved

i. Consider the simple enjoyment of our own bodily well-being (contentment, comfort, and the like) or pleasant food or the like:  these are examples of a private good.  The crudest version of so-called egotism would be one who lives for this experience alone: everything else is just a means toward that end. ii. If that were the only thing we could enjoy, then our public actions (as well as the objects of those actions) would have only an instrumental value , but . . . iii. we often take delight IN acting, so action is not always merely instrumental.  This kind of delight is most obvious when we act so as to enjoy "concupiscible" goods.  You might say that we live to act rather than we act to live or to obtain some future reward.   iv. And among those actions that we delight in most are those interactions with other individuals whereby we enjoy the interaction itself as an object OR we cooperate with others so as to create something that can exist only

Many whom we call egotists might be better described as small-minded.  That is, their view of their own fulfillment is so impoverished they see only the goods that can be enjoyed only inasmuch as they are not shared and fail to recognize the goods that can be enjoyed precisely by being shared.

If the many universes really did appear ex nihilo , then couldn't they just as well disappear?  In that case, it would be possible that no universe at all would be in existence.  In that case, Aquinas's third way might be quite pertinent. Of course, the claim isn't really that the big bang occurred ex nihilo , but rather that it was caused by a flux in the quantum field.  But is the quantum field itself contingent?  If it is, then that's where the the third way would be applicable.

Trying to guess at how Aristotle would think of these matters: If the four elements could, as it were, "have their way," then they would settle out so that all earth would be inert at the bottom, above that water, above that air, and above that fire.  Perfectly orderly, but perfectly lifeless. The churning of these elements that is brought bout by the motion of the spheres may be a necessary condition for the maintenance of life, for it causes a disequilibrium which in turn... (I am not sure of where to go with this). That churning's source is something that is in some sense alive (actually, for Aristotle, it's not some "one" thing but many spheres, and the many spheres are either ensouled or are moved by immaterial intellects). Now to the present way of looking at things: Those aspects of our world which are susceptible to mechanistic description might be the parts that likewise seem to seek equilibrium.  More than mechanics may be needed for life

It supposes that all actions are at some basic level the result of instrumental reasoning, i.e., wherein someone who desires pleasure x calculates that by doing y he may obtain x, and hence decides to act. Pleasure IN cooperation is a great counter-example to egotism as calculus.  And it is a better counterexample than examples of pure altruism.  It is neither egoistic nor altruistic.  It's not, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours," but it is capable of giving rise to such reciprocity.  It is not "I will act for your sake without seeking benefit," but is capable of explaining how actions that benefit the other while leading to self-harm can seem desirable to animals.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism

Zachariah's question was epistemological.  Mary's: metaphysical .

In De anima,  Aristotle struggles to give an analogy for the soul as entelecheia .  At one point, he compares it to habitual knowledge, which is a kind of form that actualizes the capacity to know so that one is ready to act.  The capacity is like matter and the habit like the form.  Helpful, but just an analogy, But I think that the scholastic saying "action follows being" is also helpful, possibly mores than the above-mentioned analogy.  "Being" seems to be a more accurate description of the activity called the "soul."

If higher level operations were principled by lower operations rather than by a higher level of being, then those (higher level) operations would merely be an effect of the interactions of lower level beings: they would be epiphenomenal.  And if epiphenomenal, then agency would be an illusion.  But if agency is not illusory, it is not epiphenomenal and higher level operations are not the effect of lower level operations.  The only alternative is that there is a higher level of being present.  But how does that relate to the lower--as being is to capacity?

There are two preambles to the acceptance of miracles: either is sufficient. The first is the conviction that God is provident.  If God is, then it would be fitting for God to have something to say, and communicating is generally a free action, and God's freedom would be demonstrated by supernatural intervention.  In other words, we at least hope for God to show us that He is speaking to us, miracles are God's way of initiating communication. The second is the recognition my existence is good, but that this goodness consists precisely in my searching for meaning.  "My" hear ends up including all of "us."  And "meaning" ends up being all encompassing.  So we are naturally searching for God.  We are, as Giussani says, beggars.  Miracles are crusts of bread given by God to coax us to (the thought of Panera as a prelude to heaven just popped in my mind) become His companions.  Compañeros.  Refusing in principle to accept this invitation until God h

Words are our gestures toward the infinite; language, the choreography.

The number 'pi' looks random from one perspective, but not to one who knows how it is generated. What looks random from a quantum point of view may be determined by an act of free will.

I would like to argue that altruistic behavior is derived from the valuing of a good that one has shared with the one for whose sake one acts.  The problem, however, seems to be that the altruist doesn't hope to enjoy that common good: that is, if you give your life to save your children, then once you're dead you are no longer enjoying the good of community.  But at the moment you are acting for their good, you are sharing in some sense sharing that good with them and possibly doing so more abundantly than you otherwise could.  So you not only act so that they will live well later on, but to be with them-later-on right now.

The being at work of a capacity while  it is still potentially fully realized.