tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post8280758903159591551..comments2024-02-20T00:47:19.513-08:00Comments on Currents in Catholic Thought: A Homily on the PassionJoe Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-28253175766020854112017-01-13T20:46:12.031-08:002017-01-13T20:46:12.031-08:00So we finally found a way to put God himself on th...So we finally found a way to put God himself on the crosses he merely witnessed before in silence. <br /><br />Good. <br /><br />Good for us. I'll take that moment. And I'll look at God looking at his crossed Son like God looked at muddy Omayra. I will look on the suffering of God with supreme indifference. Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-20438450609034393712015-03-30T09:48:07.078-07:002015-03-30T09:48:07.078-07:00Joseph:
I hope these 2 comments meet your request...Joseph:<br /><br />I hope these 2 comments meet your request for the Catholicity of a qualified omnipotence. <br /><br />If this is not the kind of 'evidence' you were looking for, perhaps you could be more specific.Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-69604438033035355732015-03-30T09:45:21.233-07:002015-03-30T09:45:21.233-07:00God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and will...God loves Himself of necessity, but loves and wills the creation of extra-Divine things, on the other hand, with freedom. (De fide.)<br /><br />God is not free to choose between good and evil, according to Catholic dogma:<br /><br />The imperfection which belongs to created volition must not be ascribed to the notion of the Divine freedom. Therefore the Divine freedom is not libertas contrarietatis, that is, a freedom to choose between good and evil; for the possibility of willing evil is indeed a sign of freedom but it is not of the essence<br />of freedom, and signifies rather imperfection (De verit. 22, 6). The Divine freedom is positively to be defined as libertas contradictionis, that is, the freedom to act or not to act (for example, to create the world), and as libertas specificationis, that is, freedom to choose between various good or indifferent actions (for example, to create this or that worId).<br /><br />Ott, 46-7.<br /><br />Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-706283959770851122015-03-30T09:35:29.835-07:002015-03-30T09:35:29.835-07:00This passage from Ott discusses the Catholic under...This passage from Ott discusses the Catholic understanding of God's omnipotence. It amplifies the idea that God's power is ordered to a particular reality. 'Impotence,' though a provocative term (especially as weakness), is not the way an ordered omnipotence is framed:<br /><br /><br />Speculatively, God's omnipotence flows from his being pure act. The efficacy of a thing is determined by the grade of its real being: (Unumquodque agit secundum quod est in actu) (S. th. I 25, I ad I). To God's Infinite Reality of Being there corresponds an (intensively) Infinite Power. This extends over the whole sphere of real and possible being (extensively infinite). As God's power is identical with God's Essence, it cannot imply anything which contradicts the Essence and the Attributes of God. Thus God cannot change, cannot lie, can make nothing that has happened not to have happened (contrary to the teaching of St. Peter Damian), cannot realise anything which is contradictory in itself. 2 Tim. 2, 13: (He cannot deny himself) negare seipsum non potest. Cf. St. Augustine, De civ. Dei V 10, I; S. th. I 25, 4.<br /><br />God has determined in a certain mode His omnipotence, by freely choosing to realise one definite world-order from many possible such orders. God's might, which activates itself in the framework of the real world-order, is called "potentia ordinata " to distinguish it from His " potentia absoluta."<br /><br />_Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma_ p.47.Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-5945301046450860302015-03-26T21:18:17.481-07:002015-03-26T21:18:17.481-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-10634248654445829792015-03-26T18:36:57.922-07:002015-03-26T18:36:57.922-07:00aaJoe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-43522080188914986042015-03-26T15:23:04.495-07:002015-03-26T15:23:04.495-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-37306080216254478572015-03-24T16:29:25.250-07:002015-03-24T16:29:25.250-07:00The poignancy of this comment warrants a response,...The poignancy of this comment warrants a response, however inadequate it will be. I know it is inadequate before I write it.<br /><br />There is not only no solidarity here; there is no possibility of solidarity: ever.<br /><br />I do not know where mercy was on that day Omayra died, or the days leading up to it. The decision to let her die is mind-boggling, horrific, evil.<br /><br />All these Crosses, all this suffering, go, it would seem, unmarked, unheard, unknown. I wonder if all these crosses of past, present and future pass through the one Cross. Perhaps they are all one and the same Cross, in which past, present and future are silent.<br /><br />The Cross is never empty, even after resurrection, whatever that could mean. If so, then neither is resurrection ever empty, whatever that could mean.Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-36484714863682915222015-03-24T07:22:49.104-07:002015-03-24T07:22:49.104-07:007) All Christian faith is R faith. There is no oth...7) All Christian faith is R faith. There is no other. We cannot 'wink' the bodily R away, and continue anyway because we really need the eggs. It is the earliest teaching of the Church that if Christ is not raised faith is in vain. It is the most stunning, inexplicable event in the bible. It is the saturated phenomenon par excellence, and presents its phenomenality to theology, not any kind of philosophy. The R is impossible.Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-70772379402731552052015-03-24T07:16:18.994-07:002015-03-24T07:16:18.994-07:006) History itself presents a God that has material...6) History itself presents a God that has material presence in events: Creation, the Theophany on Sinai, the Incarnation--'God has.' But it is no less true that God has been historically silent ever since, at least with respect to the magnitude of what 'God has' done. With respect, therefore, to our own eyes, 'God doesn't.' And all the theodical nightmares, all too real, seem to point to a God that could but won't; this is a nightmare from which awakening is not an option. This is the predicament of faith and the human condition. Our only option is to conclude that a God who could but won't, simply "isn't." This the case for many.I am looking at another option that is experienced on another horizon.Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-79477183285810882042015-03-24T07:05:24.726-07:002015-03-24T07:05:24.726-07:003) Catholicism confesses that the deepest reality ...3) Catholicism confesses that the deepest reality of Jesus is that he is both human and divine, not that he is really, deep down, God pure and simple: that interpretation is certainly logical, but monophysitism as well. Faith does not simplify; it complicates by 'folding.'<br /><br />4) Jesus most certainly had a death just like ours; that is the materiality of the Cross. If that death were not the death of a human, no soteriology worth its salt could have arisen.<br /><br />5) The R of Jesus is definitionally different from what our own might be. Faith tells us that Jesus's R had a clear trajectory, and religion tells us what it is: eternal life conquers death; vindication of all Jesus was, all about him affirmed and ratified. We are not resurrected to the perichoresis of the trinity. Our R is ordered to something else.<br /> Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-14774339898398252102015-03-24T06:55:26.378-07:002015-03-24T06:55:26.378-07:00If we can suspend the problem of 'God could...If we can suspend the problem of 'God could' our task still remains daunting with the remaining 'God has' and 'God doesn't.'<br /><br />First a homily allows for greater freedom of exploration and expression than other genres. My goal was to put before us a level of emotion and materiality that is lost on Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. So I broke all my analytic rules of eschewing analogical language. Brevity insists on the economy of imagery.<br /><br />But the theological element should not be so subverted as to be a retraction of all I have written before. Allow me the Homily.<br /><br />There is no denying 'God has' and 'God doesn't.' That might inform what's going on in 'God could.' <br /><br />So back to the theological:<br /><br />1) The resurrection as surprise: Certainly for his followers, Jesus's R is a surprise. They never saw it coming, did not hope for it, and as the Gospels depict, did not believe it with their own eyes until they 'recognize' Jesus.<br /><br />2) Is God surprised by the R? Perhaps!!!! Is this not the way it is with Love, the gift and hospitality? When giving alms Jesus taught that the left hand should not know what the right is doing: the hands would be surprised at each other. This is a logic of theopoetics; it is impossible, but God is the possibility of the impossible.<br />Joe Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14191089729473477072noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-80307089854517104462015-03-23T15:27:59.068-07:002015-03-23T15:27:59.068-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-54322121006660360412015-03-23T15:27:00.964-07:002015-03-23T15:27:00.964-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-62003311949577255922015-03-23T15:23:08.388-07:002015-03-23T15:23:08.388-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-38212280536118412882015-03-23T14:55:11.834-07:002015-03-23T14:55:11.834-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-58295584786920711082015-03-23T14:33:28.921-07:002015-03-23T14:33:28.921-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6367540557347019200.post-37485775730078572022015-03-23T14:11:07.293-07:002015-03-23T14:11:07.293-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Joseph Charles https://www.blogger.com/profile/02849704279926794392noreply@blogger.com