The Christian Vanguard

If A and B share the same essences, like "Being" and "Goodness" share the same essence, does that mean that the terms we use for A and B respectively are synonymous? This question was brought up to me in the context of a discussion had on the Trinity and Divine Simplicity. If all three persons of the Trinity share in the same essence, then the terms would be synonymous, which is absurd. Obviously The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit do not refer to the same person and are not interchangeable.  But it doesn't follow that if something shares in the same essence that the terms must be synonymous, and this is illustrated when we think about the convertibility thesis, which is what my last few posts have been touching on. Though being and goodness are convertible and the same, they are not synonymous terms. They refer to the same thing, but differ in thought. “Good” expresses the idea of desirability, which the term “being” does not express. “Good” adds the ...

Probably the most well known objection to St. Anselm's Ontological argument, usually attributed to Kant, says that existence is not a predicate. When we inquire into the nature of things, we say that it is this shape and that color, and these statements have some meaningful content to them because we are able to predicate something to them. They tell us something about the object. However, saying that X exists tells us nothing about the nature of the object. So being is not a predicate.  This is not the view of the scholastics, and definitely not the view of St. Thomas Aquinas, who does say being (or existence) is a predicate. So how then do we deal with the above objection? Let's look at the mode of inquiry. When we ask what something is, we answer by giving a more common term to which we add a specific difference. So when we ask what a cat is, we say it is a mammal that has this or that distinguishing feature. We may ask what this more common thing is as well, and we ...

In the last few weeks, my social media accounts have been abuzz with the topic of abortion. One common defense of it has been something like, "Since unwanted children will not be aborted, they will most likely end up in the foster care system, where they will probably be abused and raped. So abortion is a better option." After I asked whether they would apply this logic to a two year old, they said they would. In the eyes of my interlocutors, death was a better option. This isn't an uncommon view. I would think most, if not all, persons who committed suicide thought the exact same thing and this motivated their suicide. So, is death better an abused life? In light of the convertibility thesis, it is not.  The convertibility thesis states that "being" and "good" are basically the same thing, just considered differently. Where there is being, there is goodness coextensive with it. If being alive is participating in being, and death is not participat...

We read in Matthew 13:55-56 Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things? Protestants will point to this verse and say that this proves that the Perpetual Virginity of Mary is false. Is that so? It is true that the most natural reading of the Greek word for "brothers" and "sisters" is read to mean blood brothers. As many good Catholics have already pointed out, while the word does encompass the blood brother understanding, it is by no means limited to it. And plenty of early church witnesses testify that they are his cousins. The early church is by no means unanimous, some think they are his blood brothers, others think they are cousins, while some others think they are St. Joseph's children from a previous marriage before he married Mary. But my point is that the early church does provide precedent for the be...

There is something wrong with me. My heart. It's not working. Properly. I tossed and turned all night the other night. I meditated on those things which were bothering me. They have me pretty depressed. Justly or unjustly, who knows, but it is the case. And as I was meditating, I thought to myself, "You need to cry. You need to cry this out. You need a good solid cry." And I stared at my wall, at my ceiling, at my feet, not finding any position of comfort. And though the pain that has swelled up inside me for the last several months has been dying to get out, now that I've given myself permission to feel my feelings, I find that I am unable to. That's strange.  There's a mounting pressure in my heart. I can feel it. It feels like it wants to explode. But I can't let it out. I can't release any of it. I cannot cry. I cannot feel the movements of my heart. Nor can I do much else. I barely eat. I might have a banana so that I don't cramp up at wo...

My Anglican friend believes in open communion, that is that in virtue of him being a Christian, he should be allowed to partake in the Eucharistic sacrifice of the Mass. He has a great appreciation for the Church Fathers, and so I wonder what he will make of some of the following quotations (and I do intend to ask). St. Ignatius of Antioch views the Eucharist as a sacrament of Ecclesial Unity.  St. Ignatius in Letter to the Philadelphians 4  says,  Take care, therefore, to participate in one Eucharist (for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup that leads to unity through his blood; there is one altar, just as there is one bishop , together with the council of presbyters and the deacons, my fellow servants), in order that whatever you do, you do in accordance with God.   In his letter  Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8 , he writes, Only the Eucharist which is under the authority of the bishop (or whomever he himself designates) is to be co...