tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post791399781680817900..comments2024-03-29T20:21:24.821+11:00Comments on The Social Pathologist: Neoplatonism, Thomism and ModernismThe Social Pathologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-70900039635489114442019-04-25T07:06:31.712+10:002019-04-25T07:06:31.712+10:00BTW, JPII and Benedict wrote against materialism a...BTW, JPII and Benedict wrote against materialism a lot of the time (especially before the Cold War ended). So Eros is not bad. Body is not bad. However, (self-)reducing a man to his body is bad. That is why Eros without God's Agape is bad. BTW2: materialism can be viewed as a cognitive error, too.Mikolajhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01280729045107273819noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-63039868009621127122018-05-18T10:05:47.180+10:002018-05-18T10:05:47.180+10:00@Anon (cont)
Chesterton understood the evil that ...@Anon (cont)<br /><br />Chesterton understood the evil that this interpretation took.<br /><br /><i>" Thus, the double charges of the secularists, though throwing nothing but darkness and confusion on themselves, throw a real light on the faith. It is true that the historic Church has at once emphasised celibacy and emphasised the family; has at once (if one may put it so) been fiercely for having children and fiercely for not having children. It has kept them side by side like two strong colours, red and white, like the red and white upon the shield of St. George. It has always had a healthy hatred of pink. It hates that combination of two colours which is the feeble expedient of the philosophers. It hates that evolution of black into white which is tantamount to a dirty gray. In fact, the whole theory of the Church on virginity might be symbolized in the statement that white is a colour: not merely the absence of a colour. All that I am urging here can be expressed by saying that Christianity sought in most of these cases to keep two colours coexistent but pure......</i><br /><br /><i>...... But the Tolstoyans are not quite right enough to run the whole world; and in the ages of faith they were not allowed to run it. The world did not lose the last charge of Sir James Douglas or the banner of Joan the Maid. And sometimes this pure gentleness and this pure fierceness met and justified their juncture; the paradox of all the prophets was fulfilled, and, in the soul of St. Louis, the lion lay down with the lamb. But remember that this text is too lightly interpreted. It is constantly assured, especially in our Tolstoyan tendencies, that when the lion lies down with the lamb the lion becomes lamb-like. But that is brutal annexation and imperialism on the part of the lamb. That is simply the lamb absorbing the lion instead of the lion eating the lamb. The real problem is--Can the lion lie down with the lamb and still retain his royal ferocity? THAT is the problem the Church attempted; THAT is the miracle she achieved. "</i><br /><br />Augustine and Benedict mix colours, Aquinas keeps them pure.<br /><br /><i>Most everyone then was opposed to Galileo's model...</i><br /><br />Consensus of opinion is not the truth. <br /><br /><i> Actually study the history and philosophy of science before you make statements like this</i><br /><br /><a href="http://bertie.ccsu.edu/naturesci/cosmology/galileopope.html" rel="nofollow"> The Pope acknowledged that Galileo was right and the Church wrong.</a><br /><br /><i>And empiricism isn't real, your eyes can't magically tell you how to interpret phenomena </i><br /><br />That's EXACTLY what the Feminists and Postmodernists tell me. You see, when I see a being with a penis I call it a male. The Feminists and the Postmodernists tell me I'm seeing things, and that it's really a woman. They're there to tell me how to interpret things, just like you, because like you say I should not trust my eyes. <br /><br /><i>There literally wasn't any such thing as 'The Enlightenment' </i><br /><br />Subtlety in thought is needed. The problem isn't with the Enlightenment but with spergyiness of some of its proponents who failed to keep things in balance. You mistake the idiot for the message. I kind of think that reason is a good thing, and like Thomas, I see no conflict with faith and science, it's a seamless garment. <br /><br />And, by the way......."bro". Most of the heresies that branched from the Enlightenment came from those who were "into philosophy". There are some eggheads out there who are so into their theories that they constantly deny the sensory reality that's out there. Reality is there to ensure that our ideas remain calibrated to it.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-86619206216444822942018-05-18T10:04:16.776+10:002018-05-18T10:04:16.776+10:00@Anon
This project was a failure, as far from m...@Anon <br /><br /><i> This project was a failure, as far from mitigating the errors of Aristotelianism,</i><br /><br />And yet the Church regards him as a Doctor. <a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.html" rel="nofollow">Aeterni Patris?</a><br /><br />The problem isn't Arsitotlean philosophy, the problem is "spergism" which fixes on the part and misses the whole. <br /><br /><i>In reality everything sans agape is bad</i><br /><br />Genesis 1:31? <br /><br />Benedicts encyclical was a discussion document not a formal teaching statement (you might want to read that bit) wanting to open up a discussion on the subject of <i>Cartias</i><br /><br />Agape as understood by the ancient Greeks is a capable of evil as is eros. The communist of Nazi soldier who gave his life for the cause displayed great Agape but in the pursuit of evil. That's why the Augustinian synthesis of Eros and Agape as being Caritas is wrong.......The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-57114206541082746872018-05-18T00:02:26.178+10:002018-05-18T00:02:26.178+10:00Christian Neo-Platonist is what most of the Church...Christian Neo-Platonist is what most of the Church Fathers were, up through and including Augustine. Thomism is a relatively recent phenomenon. St Thomas attempted to reconcile his own Christian Neo-Platonism, received through the early Scholastics (who were Platonists after the mode of Augustine, Boethius, etc), with Aristotelianism. This project was a failure, as far from mitigating the errors of Aristotelianism, it was taken as justifying them, and St Thomas' followers would be less interested in the Neo-Platonism of Thomas, Augustine, Boethius etc than they would in the Aristotelianism that St Thomas attempted to reconcile it with. Which lead naturally to the increasing division and in-fighting of later later Scholasticism that allowed fake reductionist philosophies to gain ground, and eventually supplant Christianity in the west with their madness.<br /><br />"but if you think about it for a minute, the implications of what Benedict is saying is that without the benefit of Agape, Eros is bad. i.e the natural human proclivity for procreation is a bad thing."<br /><br />"Yet eros and agape—ascending love and descending love—can never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the true nature of love in general is realized."<br /><br />Nice reading comprehension, bro.<br /><br />In reality everything sans agape is bad. A thing apart from Divine Love becomes perverted and twisted from its proper function. That's what makes something evil. If it departs from God, from His Love, from The Form of Good, it's iniquitous. Fallen man's eros, prone to depart from agape, often leads him astray. But Benedict is saying the two must be in unity. Submit your eros to agape and it will be purified, it is actually in the nature of eros to do this. Conformance of man to the divinely ordained Form of Good makes things good, and our whole being, even our eros, must conform to this.<br /><br />"Let me give you an example. The whole Gallileo saga illustrates that battle between Neoplatonism and Thomism in the Church. The Neoplatonists said the Bible says this, the Thomists said but my eyes see that."<br /><br />Most everyone then was opposed to Galileo's model, especially the Aristotelian Schoolmen, among whom the Thomists were numbered. And their argument wasn't just 'the bible says this', they had specific counterarguments, rooted in observation, as to why he Earth could not be spinning, could not be in motion. Actually study the history and philosophy of science before you make statements like this. Read up on the Quine-Duhem Thesis, and what a paradigm (in the Kuhnian sense) is. And empiricism isn't real, your eyes can't magically tell you how to interpret phenomena ("but my eyes see that").<br /><br />"The Enlightenment was a broad thing, and something I'm generally in favour of."<br /><br />There literally wasn't any such thing as 'The Enlightenment' but the ideas shilled under the label today are all degenerate. Nihilism, reductionism, individualism, empiricism, feminism, the worship of money and technology, the abandonment of legitimate philosophy in favor of empty rhetoric, and delusions of human equality and greatness. A great recipe for societal collapse.<br /><br />"On a final note. Chesterton made the comment that Platonism seems to be a heresy that continually reappears"<br /><br />Good to know Augustine, Boethius, and a majority of the Church Fathers were heretics. Aristotle really is a cheap substitute for people who can't into philosophy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-37841314692036597662018-05-10T23:21:00.378+10:002018-05-10T23:21:00.378+10:00@Jason.
That's an interesting angle I've ...@Jason.<br /><br />That's an interesting angle I've not actually thought of before, though I have a few devout Christian patients who really need antidepressants and refuse to take them. <br /><br />Interestingly, they spend "thousands" on natural cures without much benefit.<br /><br />A lot of people have a hard time accepting the fact that their depression or anxiety is not due to any "issue" rather it's a consequence of biochemical dysfunction. People really do think that their intellect is somehow disassociated from their bodies, hence my view that Neoplatonism is natural cognitive error.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-44510359986653969442018-05-10T08:41:44.850+10:002018-05-10T08:41:44.850+10:00Your discussion here made me think of SSRis and ot...Your discussion here made me think of SSRis and other psychiatric drugs. While recognizing there is a legitimate debate to be had about such medications, it does seem to me there can be a kneejerk Platonic, gnostic response to them by the devout. It's as though there is something illegitimate about one's psyche and even spirit being repaired by something that is merely a combination of chemicals. It's so material, so mundane in the minds of some. Prayer or mental improvement should be the cure, rather than the "short cut" of anti-depressants or anti-psychotics or whatnot. Obviously as a physician these issues have probably crossed your mind in interactions with patients.Jasonnoreply@blogger.com