Comments for Paying Attention To The Sky

Comment on Why We Are Losing the Gay Marriage Debate – David S. Crawford by djeter

djeter — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:59:36 +0000

I found this a frightening piece as well. I loved your blog BTW and encourage all to read it. I’m a big Tolkien fan so loved your post on the Virgin Mary and Lady Galadriel. Excellent work.
dj

Comment on Why We Are Losing the Gay Marriage Debate – David S. Crawford by Aric

Aric — Wed, 08 May 2013 05:37:42 +0000

“But can there be a position that is publicly immoral and yet privately moral?”

Not in this schema—morality is understood as something that is human-created, just like the concept of God and any framework of meaning.

The last paragraph here is actually very chilling, even sobering. In this world, Christians will have to answer not only their neighbors, but the state, as to why they hold the positions they do. If their arguments are found insufficient (as they would be), then they would face prosecution. I wonder what such a world would look like? Being cast as a moral minority, and as a bigot, and with no public philosophic support? Has there ever been such a period in Christian history?

Comment on Introducing Ronald Knox by Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 01 May 2013 02:41:28 +0000

Msgr. Knox – such a great inspiration for Catholics. Thank you for this post!

Comment on Flannery O’Connor As A Satirist Of The Negative Way – Ralph C. Wood by michael j burke

michael j burke — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:23:37 +0000

I can not reply to the entire piece, nor the one above concerning racism of F.O. ; but at least cut out the idea of her affinity for Southern Protestants ……..she has written her subject was the moment of “Grace offered” and the circumstance was most easily described using the dramatic baptisms in the river, for example than Catholic use of idiocycratics who are stored in monasteries and some become saints……….the poor white child whom the colored maid secretly brings to Baptism on the river, later drowns himself escaping the dark figure on the riverbank …………these physical manifestations can more easily be presented via the characters in Wise Blood, who if Catholic might have become monks, invisible to the world
She had no time to waste on secondary topics [like St. Paul insisting slaves remain slave] as her book was the book of existential moments of salvation, where circumstance are just that, accidents of birth place and time and the stage upon which we all are saved or damned

Comment on Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, and Natural Law — Steven Wedgeworth by djeter

djeter — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:17:07 +0000

Has anyone wished to do good and then done the opposite?
***************************
OMG, Jonathan, if that is not one of the horrors of living in a fallen world, I don’t know what is. I believe they call it the Law of Unintended Consequences. May it never happen to you, but never be surprised if it does. Falling in love is the usual first step, but that is just the cynic in me.

Comment on Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, and Natural Law — Steven Wedgeworth by djeter

djeter — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:09:27 +0000

The problem is, Jonathan, that no matter what example you might choose ultimately you have to accept the notion that not only the content of our moral obligations but their obligatory character are determined, on Aquinas’s analysis of Natural Law theory, by the metaphysics of final causality or natural teleology. So it’s to the latter two one must explain and ground one’s acceptance and belief in Natural Law theory.

Not a small matter. You will see somewhere in these exchanges the idea that “the study of what natural reason can and must know before it can know the truths of faith – precedes dogmatics in the order of knowledge, and always will.” The Church will always be at the mercy of secular nitwits who make their broad, blasphemous, flatulent claims of disbelief. It takes brains to be a believer and follow the arguments of dogma. If you don’t believe that, look at the intellectual giants the Church has always had by her side and whose essays populate this blog. You may also note, sad to say, that none of them are written by me.

Comment on Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, and Natural Law — Steven Wedgeworth by Jonathan Mccormack

Jonathan Mccormack — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:52:17 +0000

Also seems odd everyone seems bent on telling Hart it can be done, instead of proving it by simply doing it. Beyond rape and murder and other broad notions Hart points out, provide an example of natural law reasoning a moral as regards, say, the Iraque war. Or welfare. Or….anything !

Comment on Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, and Natural Law — Steven Wedgeworth by Jonathan Mccormack

Jonathan Mccormack — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:25:23 +0000

I’m utterly baffled how anyone can deny Hart’s claim distinguishing between the gnomic and natural will. Proof !? Has anyone wished to do good and then done the opposite ? There is the proof.

Comment on Edward Feser, David Bentley Hart, and Natural Law — Steven Wedgeworth by Debilis

Debilis — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:25:47 +0000

This is a brilliant summary!

I’d been wondering about this issue for some time, and have been delighted to see two writers I enjoy debate it out. Even better to see this reflection on it. Thank you.

Comment on The Orthodox Understanding Of The Relational Reality Of Personhood II – Don Sheehan by Our living bond with the other world | Orthodox in the District

Our living bond with the other world | Orthodox in the District — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 05:26:52 +0000

[...] A footnote to this passage in Brothers Karamazov describes it as “probably the master key to the philosophic interpretation, as well as the structure,” of the novel. For more information on this topic, please link to this interesting blog article: http://payingattentiontothesky.com/2012/12/05/the-orthodox-understanding-of-the-relational-reality-o… [...]