gee the philosophy forum is doing well!

[CollegeCatholic]

Ah yes.I can see that we're talking at crossed purposes here.
There is the philosophy and theology which belongs in the halls of learning with all its technical terminology (for the sake  of brevity and clarity for those learned souls) but philosophy and theology belong to everyone; even though the descriptions and terminology may be in everyday language the concepts should be the same..

I don't think it belongs in those halls anymore - not in this day and age, not with everything available to most of us, and the constant barrage of ugliness.

The only place that should have any sort of private philosophical meetings is Rome, in my opinion.

Everybody else needs to just put their blinders on and go full steam ahead  in searching and living Truth and setting the example for those that come after us - if not, to quote Dr. Bombay, we're doomed.

Quoting a brilliant man, you are.

[QuisUtDeus]

Ah yes.I can see that we're talking at crossed purposes here.
There is the philosophy and theology which belongs in the halls of learning with all its technical terminology (for the sake  of brevity and clarity for those learned souls) but philosophy and theology belong to everyone; even though the descriptions and terminology may be in everyday language the concepts should be the same..

I don't think it belongs in those halls anymore - not in this day and age, not with everything available to most of us, and the constant barrage of ugliness.

The only place that should have any sort of private philosophical meetings is Rome, in my opinion.

Everybody else needs to just put their blinders on and go full steam ahead  in searching and living Truth and setting the example for those that come after us - if not, to quote Dr. Bombay, we're doomed.

Actually, theological posits should be made in theological circles not in the wide-open.  Dr. Scott Hahn proposed things in public like Adam's sin really being not guarding Eve from a dragon (heh).  You know, that's fine as a posit in circles of theological review where peers, etc., can examine it before the great unwashed buy into it and then the Church has a new heresy to fight.

The problem is because of things like the Modernists and Hahn spew into the air without proper vetting, the average person is kind of obligated to study theology these days - at least at some level - to separate the signal from the noise.

As far as philosophy goes, it's kind of the same thing.  The Church has the final say over what philosophies are appropriate.  That stopped happening after Vatican 2 (i.e, the Church stopped doing that), so at this point we're forced into knowing some philosophy if we want to stay sane.

I mean, you wouldn't expect nuclear reactors to be built in the wide-open without proof and testing by the experts of nuclear physics, right?  Same with theology and philosophy.  They can be proven by the experts and the truths given to a wider audience.  That's how it used to be done, and that's why people who made strange theological posits didn't get burned for heresy - they did it in academic circles.  Only the ones who went public and promoted their errors were publicly tried because they were in danger of destroying the average person's faith.

[Herr_Mannelig]

About 5 thread topics! Who's afraid of the big bad wolf? 

It is a good subject for this forum I think. It need not be flooded with posts to be a good forum A good forum has good posts, not a lot of them.

[Oldavid]

Yes Quis and all.
It's because there is so much Modernistic and Humanistic twaddle out there that it needs to be effectively challenged.
Stick to what is reliable. Scolasticism has been approved and recommended by the highest reliable authority. ( St. Pius X recommended it exclusively).
It also makes perfect sense when it is explained in the common language and idiom.
That was the purpose of the Priest's sermon- to explain the faith to the folk in the local language and idiom; and it used to work, way back before the Modernists muddied everyone's brains.

[Benno]

I'm reading a writer called Bernano, who wrote some great stuff that I'd never heard of til now. He wrote a short story that was meant to be a srmon given to a church by an agnostic, telling the catholics in the congregation much what Quis said - modern man wants saints, not arguments. He wrote it around1920 or so. As Quis said, the more Mother Teresas there are, the more likely people will pay attention to the church's theology and its responses to philosophy. Often scholasticism etc can seem dry or even ridiculously convoluted until you can see its connection to reality in the life of a saint for example.

Any way, on another thread there was a list of philosophers that catholics should get to know put up by someone. Could we try that kind of thing here?

[Oldavid]

Well, I'm back.
Some interesting things have appeared.
I'll try again to explain what I'm on about.
I apologise in advance for the anticipated lack of brevity.
I've known some wise and holy people in my life; and they have one thing in common: - they all admonished me that "discussions and debates are usually a waste of time; there's so much to learn and so little time".
One of them was a giant of a man, 6' 8" I think (although almost everyone seems a giant to me), and a Doctor of Philosophy (Scholastic). A man (priest), quite careless of his appearance (both physically and socially), and who introduced me to "formal"philosophy. He once told us that when he had been invited to a secular university to deliver a lecture on Scholastic philosophy as he was sitting in the cafeteria having lunch a group of clever youths accosted him with; "You can't prove that God exists" (he always wore his rather tatty and grubby priestly garb, so, perhaps they thought that they could have a bit  of ego-boosting fun at his expense). He proceeded to prove the existence of God from, I presume, S. Thoma's First Cause Principle, making sure that they agreed to each logical step. The important part of this is that after he'd got them to agree to all the logical steps to the conclusion they were nonplussed until one of them said something like " there must be another way or we'd have to change our lives".
Yes indeed! Saints speak louder and more effectively than all the Philosophical waffle and name-dropping in the world.
But I've been racking my brains trying to think of a saint  that didn't know or understand their faith.... I can't think of a single one.
There's S. Therese (Lisseux) (I don't want to find the correct spelling ...You'll know who I mean) .
One of her biographers claims that as a very young child she asked her mother something like:- "how is it fair that someone who spent their whole life serving God dies and goes to heaven and is perfectly happy and someone who has spent their whole life in sin but is converted on their death bed also goes to heaven and is perfectly happy"? [Obviously the question of someone who doesn't care about the ins and outs of what it all means]. To which her mother is reported to have replied ..."Take a bucket and a thimble,...fill them both...                  which is more full?"  Obviously someone the reply of someone who took no notice of her chatechism or the sermons of her p.p.
I'll bet that S.Tom applauded loudly and gleefully from his lofty vantage when he heard that.
Now I think that the bridge is too noisy with nonsense traffic so I'll look for a remote cave.

[Benno]

Actually Therese knew the Faith very well! At least compared to modern Catholics. She was quite brilliant from a young age, an avid reader and pretty well educated in the Faith by her family. That's something that's been forgotten as people paint her as a "simple" saint.

[Oldavid]

Thanks  Benno,
Who is a "simple saint"....Are there any....except you and me, of course.

[Benno]

Hey, who are you calling "simple"? 

Yes I'm sure many martyrs and child Saints were "simple", but then again, even the children tend to fall into a similar category as Therese, when you look into them. Compared to many modern Catholics, they were scholars!

[Oldavid]

I can't understand all this manouvering,
Are you sure you're not B'nai B'rith?

[Benno]

Gee the philsophy forum is doing well! 

[Iuvenalis]

Forums, IMO aren't the ideal place to have philosophical discussions. The tendency and the habit we are taught is, reply->quote->respond. So, very few end up making a posit, but rather just sniping at someone's posit (myself included). It's just so easy to only reply.

As to your 'question' Benno, which seems to be the value of philosophy I don't think you're going to get an argument, just some addendums and annexes. I think the value of philosophy is self-evident to anyone who seeks truth, which I'd think generally is any Catholic who is at all serious about their faith.

My two cents on the discussion at hand is that people in generally are so de-moralized that they lack the application of logic, and any sort of reason thinking that nothing is certain, and nothing can be assumed. The arguments of the Summa don't even work anymore on such de-moralized people-- Relativism has been so corrosive to reason and morality, no one actually can even admit that which is natural law, no one would even agree to axioms upon which a simply reasonable discussion can be had.

[Benno]

Thanks for cutting to the chase.

Does that (a loss of faith in "axioms: etc) justify a Beauty-based theology, as advocated by the current Pope? As opposed to a Truth-based theology, which was advocated by the last few Popes (even JP2) before Benedict?

I'd like to think not, but I'm pretty outnumbered, even by trads!  I think Truth, Beauty and Goodness are inseperable, with Truth most fundamental, but centuries of theology seem to focus on one element or the other through different trends.

The Saints taught all three at once. That, in a nuthshell, is what drives me nuts about all experts in catholicism.

[Oldavid]

I don't understand all this repartee,
Iuvenalis, you make some sense to me. However, I am not Suggesting that some puffed-up smart-alec on a soapbox in a public place will make any difference by sprouting "'philosophical arguments". But in the old days Freemasons realised that they couldn't  make any significant headway against the  "sensus Fidelium" until they'd cut it off at the knees. How they did that I don't know for sure; but after Vatican 11 it was a reality. For goodness sake let's all try to regain that gut knowledge of our Christianity!
Is it only in a remote cave (like the slums of Calcutta) that It can be achieved?

[Iuvenalis]

Thanks for cutting to the chase.

Does that (a loss of faith in "axioms: etc) justify a Beauty-based theology, as advocated by the current Pope? As opposed to a Truth-based theology, which was advocated by the last few Popes (even JP2) before Benedict?

I'd like to think not, but I'm pretty outnumbered, even by trads!  I think Truth, Beauty and Goodness are inseperable, with Truth most fundamental, but centuries of theology seem to focus on one element or the other through different trends.

The Saints taught all three at once. That, in a nuthshell, is what drives me nuts about all experts in catholicism.

You too have cut to the heart of the matter with your question.

I agree that beauty and truth are inseparable (as is Good-"ness"), but I think the lack of recognition of 'true truth' or that truth exists has manifested in a lack of appreciation for, even antagonism towards beauty.

One of the reasons I think 'art' has gotten so debased (e.g. Our Lady made of excrement on canvas), or that horrible body modification like morbid tattoos and hideous piercings has gotten so popular, music is so disgusting lyrically and tonally, everything is relativized to the point where there are no distinctions between beauty and filth, truth and falsity...it's all part of the same momentum.