"Though not an original thinker in this area, Thomas masterfully analyzes and synthesizes traditional data, and this is already an immense help." Could we say satan is the progenitor of much that goes by the name "original thinking?" I'll take the Angelic Doctor's synthesizing over most "original thinking" any day and twice on Sundays. (Even though it's still an ongoing project for me to follow Aquinas and his thought-patterns.)
Can it be said that much in Aquinas is purely and simply “original”? He, with Augustine, would have said that originality is another name for the sin of the devil, who strives to produce “of himself” and is therefore a liar and a murderer. See Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, §17; Augustine, Confessions 12.25.
"That Catholics so easily fell prey to the lies of the sexual revolution points to an utter paucity of intellectual and moral preparation."
Similarly:
“Well, if things were so great before Vatican II, why did everything fall apart so rapidly? It must have been a great hollow shell.”
Sed contra:
"I think this reaction is facile (in both senses: easy and superficial). The reality is, the dividing line between fidelity and apostasy is always tissue-paper-thin, and what it takes to disrupt a whole population and throw it careening off-balance is far less than we would like to think, flattering ourselves. A healthy ecosystem requires pretty optimal conditions, and if enough of those conditions are shifted rapidly enough, the ecosystem will collapse.
"So, yes, you can have a large, healthy system, but it can also be fragile and vulnerable. Such is fallen human nature."
That's a clever parallelism on your part. I admit there's some force to it. But let's be candid: there wasn't a great deal of help for the married laity, they were often left to their own resources, with very basic teaching on the 6th and 9th commandments. In some ways I think we are both better off today and worse off: worse off, obviously, because we've lost millions of Catholics to the sexual revolution (even those that pretend to still be practising); but better off in that there are in fact resources from and for orthodox Catholics that are both inspiring and practical. I saw this in my own life (got married in 1998) and have seen it in working with and talking to younger married couples too.
I think you're begging the question against the whole eco-system approach. 1) Most people are still left to their own resources. I got married in 2005 and you shoulda seen our marriage prep class! (Not just left to our own resources; taught explicitly false anti-Catholic doctrine!) Some people claim that ToB is the answer, like telling wives that "submit to your husband in all things" actually really also means "husbands submit to your wives in all things." (Talk about contradictions in terms, i.e., lies, JPII!) 2) The primary element which constitutes a 'resource' for strengthening marriage is, perhaps, in fact faith, rooted in a real sense of the reality, majesty, divinity, love-ableness, worthiness to be obeyed of God and his Church. Perhaps that was the most important marriage resource which was hollowed out precisely by the destruction of the Church's traditional liturgy after V2, what Ratzinger called (IIRC) the loss of the sense of God.
I wouldn't dispute your major point here. At the same time, I have been around long enough in the traditional movement to know that we have a dark underbelly as well - the priests who give bad advice in the confessional to wives in problematic marriages, the tendency toward rigorism and moralism, the habilitating of men in bad habits of chauvinism instead of true fatherly leadership. I could go on, but need not.
There are weaknesses in JP2's approach, to be sure, and I won't deny them. But there are also some fantastic insights. He did, in fact, have a deep insight into human nature, marriage, and the family.
I've long been intrigued by that thought (of JPII). But I must say it is false. The only kind of act which is truly a contradiction in terms (and a lie) is a propositional act (i.e., an actual lie). The only alternative is to say that every sin is in fact a lie -- which I think would be a lie.
No, this is quite mistaken. Language is not one simple reality but a host of analogous realities. This is why we can speak of music as a language, architecture as a language, and even sexual activity as a language. Yes, you can't utter a proposition with subject and predicate, but you can convey a meaning that can be expressed propositionally (although it loses something of its experiential depth when so translated). Thus, whenever there is something akin to language, there can be truth and falsehood. Admittedly, it is most obvious in the case of words, but truth is a transcendental property of being.
I think you've quite misunderstood what I said. I certainly never claimed or implied that language is one simple reality. It is true that lying is always linked to language; but(!) specifically deceitful use of language; and it's true that "whenever there is something akin to language, there *can* be truth and falsehood." But the mere 'being' of truth and falsehood (relative to some situation) does not suffice to constitute the conditions for the commission of a sin (against the truth); and neither is it true that sin (as such) is always so linked (specifically to deceitful use of language), and specifically it is not true that sins against chastity are always so linked. It may be true that all sin is somehow rooted in a lie, but it doesn't follow that all sins (including sins against chastity) are acts of lying.
Yes, but I think *you've* misunderstood what I'm saying. I never said that, e.g., drunkenness is a lie. The reason there can be sexual lies is that there are two parties communicating with each other and they are "saying" something by their actions, and this can be either truthful or deceptive.
The fundamental error here, seems to me, is rooted in one of JPII's (and C. West's and all the ToB enthusiasts') favorite sayings, from Gaudium et spes: "“The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine." [Edit: I think that's actually straight from JPII's Man and Woman He Created Them, not from GS; the similar quote from GS that JPII loved is: "The truth is that only in the light of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light." Not nearly as egregiously wrong as the other quote, but the 'only' is still very problematic.] That is a deeply ambiguous and highly misleading -- even flatly false -- statement. The body, as such, is in fact utterly incapable of "making visible what is invisible" (just as it is incapable of telling a lie, of dissimulating what is invisible). That is precisely a power which the body as such lacks. It is precisely the Spirit, and only the Spirit, which can make visible the spiritual and the divine. That's why animals -- who obviously do not lack bodies, but who lack immaterial, spiritual souls -- cannot lie, or tell the truth, or worship God.
If the bodies of a couple engaged in sexual activities are telling a lie (or a truth) *with their bodies, per se*, then the question is: What particular lie (or truth) are they telling -- again, *with their bodies, per se*?
I'm not sure how to explain something that seems so basic, but when two people engage in contraceptive sex, they are in fact doing something with their bodies that is contra naturam, contra amorem, contra matrimonium. It is a metaphysical untruth, a lack of correspondence between nature and moral action. Of course one is not cutting the will out of the picture; these are human bodies, after all, and that is precisely why the bodily acts are either human (by nature) or inhuman (by perversity) or superhuman (by grace). I sense in your remarks a somewhat disturbing, almost Cartesian bifurcation of the humanum into the spiritual domain where all meaning lies, and the physical domain which is brute matter.
Oh please! With due respect, you sense no such thing. I think you're just ignoring the irrefutable points I've made. Brute matter is brute matter, just as gents like Aristotle and Aquinas have explained it. It's not merely mathematico-mechanical Galileian-Cartesian matter. That's a different thing. Brute matter cannot account for the intellect, however; the intellect is an immaterial faculty. It is indeed a power which transcends the physical domain, a fact which grounds the immortality of the human soul -- even separated from the body! That is surely just basic sound Catholic doctrine, is it not?? It's not at all the case that *all meaning* lies in the spiritual domain. But all *spiritual meaning*, including the meaning of moral good and evil, certainly is essentially dependent on the spiritual (imago Dei) element in man, that which separates him from the mere brutes. That's why, as I pointed out, animals cannot sin. Brutes can have contraceptive sex, it is 'contra naturam,' but it cannot be sinful even though they have bodies, because sinfulness is a spiritual reality which cannot metaphysically subsist in dependence on mere (brute) bodies. (As for 'amorem' and 'matrimonium': those are already intrinsically spiritual realities, which have no place among the mere brutes.) The mere fact that a body is human is clearly NOT why the bodily acts are either human or inhuman or superhuman, as you claim; that determination of the character of the act follows from the state of the human will and intellect by which the person carries out the act. Thus, as Aquinas teaches, if one commits adultery by one's bodily act, but without a corresponding (spiritual) act of will, then it is not really adultery.
But if the couple are "saying" something by their actions, then surely so is the drunk?! Therefore, drunkenness (and every sin) would be a lie.
And of course it's true that whenever there are two parties communicating with each other and they are "saying" something by their actions, that this can be either truthful or deceptive. But the "truth" (i.e., goodness, objective fittingness as object for an act of the will) of what they are "saying" by their actions -- by their objective 'actus hominibus' -- is not determinative of the species of their moral act, in this case, of their being specifically truthful or deceitful (i.e., lying) in terms of their (moral, morally relevant, morally evaluable, intentional) 'actus humanus.'
"Though not an original thinker in this area, Thomas masterfully analyzes and synthesizes traditional data, and this is already an immense help." Could we say satan is the progenitor of much that goes by the name "original thinking?" I'll take the Angelic Doctor's synthesizing over most "original thinking" any day and twice on Sundays. (Even though it's still an ongoing project for me to follow Aquinas and his thought-patterns.)
Indeed!
Can it be said that much in Aquinas is purely and simply “original”? He, with Augustine, would have said that originality is another name for the sin of the devil, who strives to produce “of himself” and is therefore a liar and a murderer. See Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, §17; Augustine, Confessions 12.25.
"That Catholics so easily fell prey to the lies of the sexual revolution points to an utter paucity of intellectual and moral preparation."
Similarly:
“Well, if things were so great before Vatican II, why did everything fall apart so rapidly? It must have been a great hollow shell.”
Sed contra:
"I think this reaction is facile (in both senses: easy and superficial). The reality is, the dividing line between fidelity and apostasy is always tissue-paper-thin, and what it takes to disrupt a whole population and throw it careening off-balance is far less than we would like to think, flattering ourselves. A healthy ecosystem requires pretty optimal conditions, and if enough of those conditions are shifted rapidly enough, the ecosystem will collapse.
"So, yes, you can have a large, healthy system, but it can also be fragile and vulnerable. Such is fallen human nature."
That's a clever parallelism on your part. I admit there's some force to it. But let's be candid: there wasn't a great deal of help for the married laity, they were often left to their own resources, with very basic teaching on the 6th and 9th commandments. In some ways I think we are both better off today and worse off: worse off, obviously, because we've lost millions of Catholics to the sexual revolution (even those that pretend to still be practising); but better off in that there are in fact resources from and for orthodox Catholics that are both inspiring and practical. I saw this in my own life (got married in 1998) and have seen it in working with and talking to younger married couples too.
I think you're begging the question against the whole eco-system approach. 1) Most people are still left to their own resources. I got married in 2005 and you shoulda seen our marriage prep class! (Not just left to our own resources; taught explicitly false anti-Catholic doctrine!) Some people claim that ToB is the answer, like telling wives that "submit to your husband in all things" actually really also means "husbands submit to your wives in all things." (Talk about contradictions in terms, i.e., lies, JPII!) 2) The primary element which constitutes a 'resource' for strengthening marriage is, perhaps, in fact faith, rooted in a real sense of the reality, majesty, divinity, love-ableness, worthiness to be obeyed of God and his Church. Perhaps that was the most important marriage resource which was hollowed out precisely by the destruction of the Church's traditional liturgy after V2, what Ratzinger called (IIRC) the loss of the sense of God.
I wouldn't dispute your major point here. At the same time, I have been around long enough in the traditional movement to know that we have a dark underbelly as well - the priests who give bad advice in the confessional to wives in problematic marriages, the tendency toward rigorism and moralism, the habilitating of men in bad habits of chauvinism instead of true fatherly leadership. I could go on, but need not.
There are weaknesses in JP2's approach, to be sure, and I won't deny them. But there are also some fantastic insights. He did, in fact, have a deep insight into human nature, marriage, and the family.
That was excellent. This would make the foundations of a good Catholic marriage handbook. Have you written a book on marriage?
Yes, in fact, I have!
https://osjustipress.com/products/treasuring-goods-marriage-kwasniewski
(published by Sophia Institute Press, but this link above is to my own website where people can get signed copies of my books)
This particular post on St. Thomas isn't in the book, but a lot more like it is in there.
"the act is a contradiction in terms, a lie."
I've long been intrigued by that thought (of JPII). But I must say it is false. The only kind of act which is truly a contradiction in terms (and a lie) is a propositional act (i.e., an actual lie). The only alternative is to say that every sin is in fact a lie -- which I think would be a lie.
No, this is quite mistaken. Language is not one simple reality but a host of analogous realities. This is why we can speak of music as a language, architecture as a language, and even sexual activity as a language. Yes, you can't utter a proposition with subject and predicate, but you can convey a meaning that can be expressed propositionally (although it loses something of its experiential depth when so translated). Thus, whenever there is something akin to language, there can be truth and falsehood. Admittedly, it is most obvious in the case of words, but truth is a transcendental property of being.
I think you've quite misunderstood what I said. I certainly never claimed or implied that language is one simple reality. It is true that lying is always linked to language; but(!) specifically deceitful use of language; and it's true that "whenever there is something akin to language, there *can* be truth and falsehood." But the mere 'being' of truth and falsehood (relative to some situation) does not suffice to constitute the conditions for the commission of a sin (against the truth); and neither is it true that sin (as such) is always so linked (specifically to deceitful use of language), and specifically it is not true that sins against chastity are always so linked. It may be true that all sin is somehow rooted in a lie, but it doesn't follow that all sins (including sins against chastity) are acts of lying.
Yes, but I think *you've* misunderstood what I'm saying. I never said that, e.g., drunkenness is a lie. The reason there can be sexual lies is that there are two parties communicating with each other and they are "saying" something by their actions, and this can be either truthful or deceptive.
The fundamental error here, seems to me, is rooted in one of JPII's (and C. West's and all the ToB enthusiasts') favorite sayings, from Gaudium et spes: "“The body, in fact, and only the body, is capable of making visible what is invisible: the spiritual and the divine." [Edit: I think that's actually straight from JPII's Man and Woman He Created Them, not from GS; the similar quote from GS that JPII loved is: "The truth is that only in the light of the Incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light." Not nearly as egregiously wrong as the other quote, but the 'only' is still very problematic.] That is a deeply ambiguous and highly misleading -- even flatly false -- statement. The body, as such, is in fact utterly incapable of "making visible what is invisible" (just as it is incapable of telling a lie, of dissimulating what is invisible). That is precisely a power which the body as such lacks. It is precisely the Spirit, and only the Spirit, which can make visible the spiritual and the divine. That's why animals -- who obviously do not lack bodies, but who lack immaterial, spiritual souls -- cannot lie, or tell the truth, or worship God.
If the bodies of a couple engaged in sexual activities are telling a lie (or a truth) *with their bodies, per se*, then the question is: What particular lie (or truth) are they telling -- again, *with their bodies, per se*?
I'm not sure how to explain something that seems so basic, but when two people engage in contraceptive sex, they are in fact doing something with their bodies that is contra naturam, contra amorem, contra matrimonium. It is a metaphysical untruth, a lack of correspondence between nature and moral action. Of course one is not cutting the will out of the picture; these are human bodies, after all, and that is precisely why the bodily acts are either human (by nature) or inhuman (by perversity) or superhuman (by grace). I sense in your remarks a somewhat disturbing, almost Cartesian bifurcation of the humanum into the spiritual domain where all meaning lies, and the physical domain which is brute matter.
Oh please! With due respect, you sense no such thing. I think you're just ignoring the irrefutable points I've made. Brute matter is brute matter, just as gents like Aristotle and Aquinas have explained it. It's not merely mathematico-mechanical Galileian-Cartesian matter. That's a different thing. Brute matter cannot account for the intellect, however; the intellect is an immaterial faculty. It is indeed a power which transcends the physical domain, a fact which grounds the immortality of the human soul -- even separated from the body! That is surely just basic sound Catholic doctrine, is it not?? It's not at all the case that *all meaning* lies in the spiritual domain. But all *spiritual meaning*, including the meaning of moral good and evil, certainly is essentially dependent on the spiritual (imago Dei) element in man, that which separates him from the mere brutes. That's why, as I pointed out, animals cannot sin. Brutes can have contraceptive sex, it is 'contra naturam,' but it cannot be sinful even though they have bodies, because sinfulness is a spiritual reality which cannot metaphysically subsist in dependence on mere (brute) bodies. (As for 'amorem' and 'matrimonium': those are already intrinsically spiritual realities, which have no place among the mere brutes.) The mere fact that a body is human is clearly NOT why the bodily acts are either human or inhuman or superhuman, as you claim; that determination of the character of the act follows from the state of the human will and intellect by which the person carries out the act. Thus, as Aquinas teaches, if one commits adultery by one's bodily act, but without a corresponding (spiritual) act of will, then it is not really adultery.
But if the couple are "saying" something by their actions, then surely so is the drunk?! Therefore, drunkenness (and every sin) would be a lie.
And of course it's true that whenever there are two parties communicating with each other and they are "saying" something by their actions, that this can be either truthful or deceptive. But the "truth" (i.e., goodness, objective fittingness as object for an act of the will) of what they are "saying" by their actions -- by their objective 'actus hominibus' -- is not determinative of the species of their moral act, in this case, of their being specifically truthful or deceitful (i.e., lying) in terms of their (moral, morally relevant, morally evaluable, intentional) 'actus humanus.'
Whew! Sure glad I've always made a point of my not being an original thinker.