The Christian Vanguard

No. The quotation some people have in mind when they think that he did is the following.  But in Europe, in the nineteenth century, the two models were joined by a third, socialism, which quickly split into two different branches, one totalitarian and the other democratic. Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight to the radical liberal positions, which it developed and corrected. It also managed to appeal to various denominations. In England it became the political party of the Catholics, who had never felt at home among either the Protestant conservatives or the liberals. In Wilhelmine Germany, too, Catholic groups felt closer to democratic socialism than to the rigidly Prussian and Protestant conservative forces. In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness. The quotation from B16 is take...

The following is an essay I wrote for my British Empiricism class.  In order to understand Berkeley’s argument that sensible objects cannot exist unperceived, we first need to understand his ontology and how he understands “existence”. The objects of our knowledge, begins Berkeley, are either impressed upon the senses, or by perception of the passions or mind, or by memory and imagination. All these objects, no matter which mode they come by, will only be known to us by some kind of property, such as it is red, soft, and heavy. That is all that is known to us, and what is not known to us is the thing in themselves. When I describe my heavy red blanket, all I am really describing are my bundled perceptions of the thing, but there is a gap between my perceptions of the thing and the thing itself. So all I really have access to are perceptions. However, if there are no perceptions of a thing, then it cannot be said to exist. For Berkeley, to speak of something unperceived as exis...

The following is an essay I turned in for my Aristotle class.  Teleology for Aristotle is an all permeating cause of prior causes. It is an end, termination, or consummation of previous acts. It is “that for the sake of which” a thing is done (194b30). So, suppose I want to be healthy, I will perform certain acts for the purpose of achieving health. I wake up early so that I may exercise so that I may be healthy. I put on my socks, so I can put on my shoes, so I can go on my run, so that I can be healthy. In this series of actions, the end goal of health sustains and motivates these actions, and these actions are complete and done well when health is achieved.  Teleology being an end should not be confused with the temporally last thing in a series, however. Even though my running causes my health may be the last in a series in a temporal sense, that’s only an accidental feature of the example. More fundamentally, Aristotle means that which is best for it (195a20). Fo...

The following is an essay I had to write for my Aristotle class. Aristotle’s discussion about the distinction between energeia and kinesis is an organic development of his previous discussion about the distinction between potencies (1048a25). He thinks that clearing up distinctions about actualility will also help us understand in a clearer way what we mean by our distinctions within potencies (1048a25). If there is a distinction like natural potencies and rational potencies (1047b-1047b30), then it stands to reason that there will be a correlating distinction within actualities. Aristotle also claims that actuality, or energeia, is an extension of the same movement, or kinesis (1047a30), which could be problematic since if they are essentially identical, then it shouldn’t be possible to have those correlating distinctions, as there can be no distinctions among identical things. So, energeia and kinesis would have to be distinct. This is what is motivating Aristotle. So what i...

The Tome of Leo is a letter written in AD 449 by Pope St. Leo to St. Flavian, who was Bishop of Constantinople. Why was this letter sent? After the Council of Ephesus, there arose a new heresy spewed by a monk named Eutyches who taught that after the incarnation, Christ only had one nature, and not two natures (divine and human). Eutyches was condemned by the Bishop, but another "council" was held in defense of Eutyches' teaching and condemned Bishop St. Flavian. This council became known as the Robber Council, which is an invalid council . So, St. Flavian appealed to his brother bishop Pope St. Leo and the letter is the reply. You can read it here .  The letter is significant for a few reasons. First, it is significant because it is a defense of orthodox teaching on the two natures of Christ. It was so profound, that this letter was appealed to in the next Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon, which did finally and authoritatively lay to rest the teaching of...

Few months ago, I bought some shoes. Nice shoes. Almost $300 dollars. Johnston and Murphy. Bought two shoe brushes with them, and some socks. Didn't think I'd need them, but I'm glad I bought them anyway. Nice lady who sold them to me, who could obviously tell I didn't have a pair like this before, showed me how to take care of them, polishing them for me, the movements to make, having me do it in front of her, what to do in cases of damage, all that. So now, I do that with some regularity. I don't always wear them, I might wear them for Mass or something, but I'll always clean them. And there's something very nice about it. There's something of a ritual to it that speaks to my inner man. I think many rituals are like this. For old school cholos, it was pressing ones pants to highlight the crease. For many boy growing up, it was seeing their dads shave and being taught how to shave. Learning how to tie a tie. How to start a fire. How to hunt. A passin...

I have a friend who is mentally disabled. She is functional, socially at least, but is not one to securely hold a job. She has, in the past, made me very uncomfortable. Not for any inappropriate reason. So for example, we were at a mutual friends birthday party, doing karaoke, and I sat next to her after doing an awesome rendition of Johnny Cash's " Boy Named Sue " and she goes, "You're really cool." And I mean, I guess she didn't mind the silence in the room that followed that. I gave an awkward smile, said thank you, and avoided eye contact. On the ride home friends commented on my being uncomfortable . And I was like, yeah that's weird, she's weird, but she's slow, so I mean, I guess we have to put up with it. And she would contact me and my friends, asking when the next time we were all going to hang out, and we were always kind of evasive. Was it mean? If you had asked me at the time, I may have been evasive on that as well. I think I...