We have to do what we can to get through to regular people who think that classical realism is too stuffy & irrelevant. That's why @realistguild member @DavidRTomlinson's work is so important. He breaks through all of this in a way we can all relate to.

When I see a problem & proposed solution on X, I examine only that. First I look for the hierarchy of goods. It's sometimes used intuitively, rarely explicitly. Following Del Noce's advice on how best to explain realism, I apply it to find what's true in the solution & order it.

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Oh?

How THAT Is Fascinating !

Most children start changing at around the age of 11. They turn from sweet & loving to willful & argumentative. That's basically where we are in the West. The worst of it lasts until about 16 or 17. The brain doesn't fully form until we're 25. I'd say we're at around 14 years old

Check this out!

Christian anthropology's linguistic structure doesn't include 'gender.' There is 'sex,' 'male,' 'female,' 'sexuality,' 'masculinity,' and 'femininity.' Shoehorning 'gender' in means giving a concept (e.g., sex) a second name (why?) or importing a foreign concept (why?).

St. Thomas Aquinas is quite clear. He considers pride (superbia) to be the root cause of all sin. Done and dusted, I thought. That was until I had a conversation with someone this morning, and he said that no, it is actually fear. That’s because, in his view, fear makes us feel threatened by the possibility of being less than others. So less powerful, less admired, less secure. In response to that, we inflate ourselves, assert our superiority, and grasp at control. This, he argued, is the true origin of pride. So I walked off, a bit blown away by that statement. I thought it made complete sense. It felt right. Then, more worryingly, I wondered: is Aquinas wrong? But thinking about it some more, I realised that the person I was talking to was wrong on this. That's because believing that fear is the root of sin reverses the actual moral order. Superbia, or pride, is not a reaction to fear, but a deliberate act of the will that seeks to reject the right order of being. Fear is a passion, an emotional reaction that can incline or tempt, but it cannot originate sin, because sin belongs properly to the rational appetite, which is the will. Pride arises when the will knowingly chooses to seek its own excellence apart from God, to exalt itself over what is true and good. This is what Satan did. In fact, pride often causes fear, not the other way around: the proud man becomes terrified of being humbled, of losing his false pre-eminence, because his soul is disordered. The angels did not fall from fear. They fell from pride. Adam and Eve did not sin out of terror. They sinned because they wanted to “be as gods.” In every case, pride is a turning inward, away from the divine source of order, a rebellion that precedes and distorts all lower movements of the soul. Even though that conversation almost swayed me, I realise with even greater certainty that to say fear causes pride is to confuse psychological mechanisms with metaphysical causality. It is probably a legacy of me sometimes seeing the world in psychological rather than metaphysical terms, which is how the world currently sees "problems". Fear may accompany sin, but pride initiates it. Pride is the foundation of every sin precisely because it rejects the eternal law, exalts the self, and draws the soul away from its proper end. Now I need to find this person and explain it to him. The French have a term for this - l’esprit d’escalier -that moment when you're already climbing the stairs to go to bed after a conversation and only then think of the perfect response, though it’s often too late.

All living humans can repent. Demons are fixed in evil. But Aquinas recognizes truths even in what demons say. This teaches me that truth doesn't depend on who speaks it. Even the worst source can contain truths worth recovering, separating from falsehood & ordering rightly.

The standard explanations of Jesus' words in Mark 14:61–62 (at his trial) and the reasons for the "blasphemy" charge and death sentence (Bock, A. Y. Collins, J. Marcus, R. Bauckham et al) don't work. For one thing, they are based on a misreading of evidence for an alleged special Jewish sense of βλασφημ- words in Philo. Here's a better explanation, and one with profound implications. academia.edu/180075979/Mark_…

“I’ve always had a hard time explaining purgatory,” the man said. “Didn’t the Second Vatican Council say that Catholics no longer have to believe in purgatory?” That remark was made to me years ago, not long after I had entered the Catholic Church. Although it saddened me to hear it, it didn’t surprise me. In the course of studying various Catholic doctrines, I had learned that certain beliefs, including purgatory, were often avoided or even ignored by some Catholics. And this, unfortunately, meant that many Catholics don’t appreciate the Feast of All Souls, which is all about praying for those who are in purgatory. “I think purgatory is rather simple to understand,” I responded. “The problem is that we often have to do away with our flawed notions of purgatory.” Growing up in a Fundamentalist home, I had been told that purgatory was the belief that everyone gets a “second chance” after death. Purgatory, I had also been taught, was just another Catholic invention that had no basis in Scripture. What I learned years later was quite different. I saw that the early Christians prayed for the dead, and that this practice was based, in part, on the actions of those Jews who had prayed for the dead (cf., 2 Macc. 12:41-46). As today’s reading from the Book of Wisdom indicates, the idea of spiritual cleansing was a common one in the Old Testament: "For if before men, indeed, they be punished, yet is their hope full of immortality; chastised a little, they shall be greatly blessed, because God tried them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself." It followed logically that if there is life after death for the just, those who are just will be cleansed fully and completely, if necessary, before entering the presence of God. This, of course, also flowed from the deepened understanding of death and resurrection given through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Savior had promised, in today’s Gospel, “that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” But the early Christians recognized that not every disciple of Jesus is perfectly cleansed in this life from venial sins. St. Augustine explained that the Church’s prayers, the Mass, and the giving of alms provided spiritual aid to the dead. “The whole Church,” he wrote, “observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf.” It is ironic that the culture of death, which is present in numerous ways, is so afraid to face death squarely and honestly. It tries to cheat and avoid death, both mocking it and cowering before it in movies, books, video games, and music. We fear death because it is so mysterious and hidden. We fear it because it seems so unjust that the vibrancy of life can end so suddenly and completely. If this world is all that exists, then death is to be feared. But it also will not be denied. St. Paul, on the other hand, embraced death—that is, the death of Jesus Christ. “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death,” he wrote to the Christians in Rome, “so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.” The Feast of All Souls not only provides us with an opportunity to pray for those who have gone before us, but also reminds us of our mortal end. We cannot deny it. But by God’s grace, we can and should prepare for it, trusting that the Lord our Shepherd will guide us through the valley of darkness.

All Souls' Day 🕯️ The last day of Allhallowtide, the triduum that began with All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Day. The living and the dead are not as far apart as we think- let’s remember. 🙏🏻

Breaking the two-party worldview is one way. I tried this with a group of moderate “left and right” friends. I briefly introduced classical realism and highlighted “left/right” as a false dichotomy. They had never heard that take and called it “deep,” then some ignored it because it didn’t fit their worldview. lol. But it was a start! @RealistGuild

Excellent work! Exposing people to classical realism and encouraging them to break free from their familiar binary (dialectical) thought patterns is a great start.

Breaking the two-party worldview is another way. I tried this with a group of moderate “left and right” friends. I briefly introduced classical realism and highlighted “left/right” as a false dichotomy. They had never heard that take and called it “deep,” then some ignored it because it didn’t fit their worldview. lol. But it was a start! @RealistGuild