I rarely read op ed pieces anymore, but this one is fascinating. Many implications. The last paragraph is a good summary: “Boomer Christians are alarmed and bewildered by a return to the faith of centuries past. They forget that the political priorities of their generation emerged from a very unusual historical moment. Their confident worldview was a gift from a different era. And it will, I fear, die with them.” wsj.com/opinion/free-express…

For Aristotle, the First Mover is also a necessary condition to the unchanging truth of propositions, which is itself a necessary condition of anything being true and known. “Evidently, again, those who say all things are at rest are not right, nor are those who say all things are in movement. For if all things are at rest, the same statements will always be true and the same always false, – but this obviously changes; for he who makes a statement, himself at one time was not and again will not be. And if all things are in motion, nothing will be true; everything therefore will be false. But it has been shown that this is impossible. Again, it must be that which is that changes; for change is from something to something. But again it is not the case that all things are at rest or in motion sometimes, and nothing for ever; for there is something which always moves the things that are in motion, and the first mover is itself unmoved.” Metaphysics, IV.8

The Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 12. What are the decrees of God? A. God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men. Eph. 1:11; Rom. 11:33; Rom. 9:14-15, 18; Eph. 1:4, 11; Rom. 9:22-23; Ps. 33:11.

Well, I can’t speak for that seminarian, but speaking for myself … reformedclassicalist.com/hom…

Sunday school this morning. Pseudo Sola Scriptura: Part 3 of Causes of Biblicism piped.video/ncdrw_-N8m0?si=Btj6… via @YouTube

A long awaited mail day.

Aristotle clearly believed that what we would today call “anti-realist” positions represent a mental disorder in need of cure—specifically the disorder of descending from human (metaphysical) thought down to merely animal fixation on the surface appearances. “But the same method of discussion must not be used with all opponents; for some need persuasion, and others compulsion. Those who have been driven to this position by difficulties in their thinking can easily be cured of their ignorance; for it is not their expressed argument but their thought that one has to meet. But those who argue for the sake of argument can be cured only by refuting the argument as expressed in speech and in words. They think that contradictories or contraries are true at the same time, because they see contraries coming into existence out of the same thing … To those, then, whose belief rests on these grounds, we shall say that in a sense they speak rightly and in a sense they err. For ‘that which is’ has two meanings, so that in some sense a thing can come to be out of that which is not, while in some sense it cannot, and the same thing can at the same time be in being and not in being – but not in the same respect. For the same thing can be potentially at the same time two contraries, but it cannot actually. And again we shall ask them to believe that among existing things there is also another kind of substance to which neither movement nor destruction nor generation at all belongs.” Metaphysics, IV.5

After a second time comparing the man who denies logic’s fundamental laws to a vegetable, Aristotle raises the “liveability” criterion. “Thus, then, it is in the highest degree evident that neither any one of those who maintain this view nor any one else is really in this position … Why does he not walk early some morning into a well or over a precipice, if one happens to be in his way? Why do we observe him guarding against this, evidently because he does not think that falling in is alike good and not good? Evidently, then, he judges one thing to be better and another worse. And if this is so, he must also judge one thing to be a man and another to be not-a-man, one thing to be sweet and another to be not-sweet. For he does not aim at and judge all things alike, when, thinking it desirable to drink water or to see a man, he proceeds to aim at these things; yet he ought, if the same thing were alike a man and not-a-man. But, as was said, there is no one who does not obviously avoid some things and not others.” Metaphysics, IV.4

Aristotle, after explaining the law of contradiction, defends it against those who demand that it be demonstrated. “Some indeed demand that even this shall be demonstrated, but this they do through want of education, for not to know of what things one should demand demonstration, and of what one should not, argues want of education. For it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything (there would be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstration); but if there are things of which one should not demand demonstration, these persons could not say what principle they maintain to be more self-evident than the present one. We can, however, demonstrate negatively even that this view is impossible, if our opponent will only say something; and if he says nothing, it is absurd to seek to give an account of our views to one who cannot give an account of anything, in so far as he cannot do so. For such a man, as such, is from the start no better than a vegetable.” Metaphysics, IV.4

Just the other day as I was quizzing my son in the Shorter Catechism I thought, why is there no C. S. Lewis Doodle (look up the channel on YouTube) for the Shorter Catechism? It would help so much with memorization and deeper understanding of the concepts. We need more tech bros on our team.

Excellent! We did all of this for exactly these reasons at an independent church plant I pastored for ten years in Boise, ID (2007-16). One positive result was that I was able to leave the church in the hands of those who had been trained for most of those years. We had a school called The Academy that would have become a full time K-12, and classes that met weekly for training elders and other ministry leaders (exclusively men) called The Shepherds College. I took this verse as one of several that demanded this very thing. If local churches all did this, guess what influence an elite and distant denominational class would have in dragging the church leftward? I’ll give you a hint. None. They would have no persuasive power in the locale, but also no reproducing power in terms of who gets into the ministry.

Gen X, look what they stole from us.

Aristotle-posting incoming over the next month or so. First one on why to know a thing by a higher science is to know it more truly, and so to know by first philosophy is to know more philosophically. “It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how practical things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that which causes derivative truths to be true is most true.” “But inasmuch as it was described as dealing with the first causes and that which is in the highest sense object of knowledge, the science of substance must be of the nature of Wisdom. For since men may know the same thing in many ways, we say that he who recognizes what a thing is by its being so and so knows more fully than he who recognizes it by its not being so and so, and in the former class itself one knows more fully than another, and he knows most fully who knows what a thing is, not he who knows its quantity or quality or what it can by nature do or have done to it.” Metaphysics, II.1; III.2

Yes, a great deal of it is all in Turretin.

Last point on this for today. One central fallacy behind accelerationist views of big and small government is that there is somehow a direct correlation between the “big” and the “good,” the good being that it is us doing it (Hint: It isn't, which is why there is no actual power being wielded). At this point you can only hear one thing. This is the mirror reaction to the naive liberal retort, “Imagine if roles were reversed,” and “We can’t do X because when they gain power they’ll do the same X.” People see the suicidal oblivion of such sentiments and match liberal antipathy to power with illiberal lust for power. The latter reaction is equally oblivious to how power actually works. It is oblivious specifically to how much of that power one has realistic access to. That matters in war. It sounds nice to say, “I’m done playing that game” to a liberal (or its conservative shadow), and conclude, “We’re ending the nineteenth amendment” or “We’re putting these back” or “We’re sending you back.” But not knowing who you are cheering on is the surest way to be surprised when they stab you in the back. If you want to pray for an event that will eventuate some serious course-changes in pure democracy or in the kleptocratic elites’ rule, very well. But to speak of a “we” exercising such power where the train has long left the station is nonesense. As the slightly more politically astute gunman once said to Dirty Harry, “Who’s ‘we’ sucka?” He had an answer. You, my friend, do not know a big enough Smith or Wesson, and we barely know any of our neighbors. Yes, the state must use decisive force against those who seek to overthrow it and destroy the people it oversees. But how is that working out for you? I reverse-UNO the merely impulsive right with the question: If the wielding of power brought you this far, of what use was the mere vibes of wielding power? In fact, you do not actually believe in the wielding of power enough if you do not care about whether or not “we” actually have it, or if more vibes from the Orange Man and his descendants are stimulating enough for you. It is precisely because I want the government to wield a power (and do nothing but wield this power until said violent enemy has been disarmed and removed from the field) that I want to ensure that government does not busy itself with anything else until that is accomplished. A fat man is big, but will he maximize force in the ring? A man with big dreams and no priorities has a big schedule. Is he more like to maximize efficiency or less? Be careful that you do not congratulate yourself too rashly in making grand intellectual or moral advances beyond the boomers. That verdict is still distant.

(1) Limitations on the power of government to centrally plan for and coerce its own citizens AND (2) a government committed to use decisive military force to protect those citizens from all enemies foreign and domestic—These two can go together. In fact they must, or everyone dies. So, as long as both factions of the currently knuckle-dragging right wants to claim the founding fathers, you should both know that choosing between these would have been foreign to those framers of our civic order. And yes, I have items where I believe they blew it. But you have to at least start with those pillars above.

This is brain rot. Team “Own the Libs” versus Team “Own the Boomers.” If those are the only options on the Right, then there is no serious adult Right. Happy Taco Tuesday.

Receipts day.

X flagged me for my “violent” post about the boy and the goose. Evidentially, geese are now added to the protected classes list. Just hope that boy doesn’t live in the U.K. Nietzsche spoke of this.

Norm: “People say the worst part is the hypocrisy, and I disagree.” Jerry: “Oh you disagree?” Norm: “Yeah, I think it’s the raping of an 8 year old girl, calling that a marriage, and then getting new revelations every time you want to rape more underaged girls and spread that all over the world.” Jerry: “So, we should ban sharia law?” Norm (stares knowingly)