Levavi oculos meos in montes

“Why”—Leo’s eyes widened with delight—“it’s an engineering problem after all!” He hung limply in air, entranced; ....He yielded himself up to it without reservation. All. All. There was no limit to what one man might do, if he gave all, and held back nothing.  Falling Free I am reading through Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, the ones that are available in my library in digital form, at least.   Falling Free is labelled as the 4th in the series, though it is a standalone and technically a prequel, set 2 centuries before the main happenings in the saga.    It doesn't actually mention the Vorkosigans -- though apparently, somewhere in the later books, one of the main characters does encounter the descendants of the original "quaddies", the genetically modified people who are depicted in the book.   It makes me wonder -- what was happening 2 centuries before my lifetime, that would go on to intersect with my story much, much later? That would have ...

Another old post-- it is related to the earlier one mentioning Dietrich von Hildebrand's description of "superficial knowledge".   (By the way, the Catholic Thinkers site is a very good resource for learning or reviewing topics related to Catholic philosophy and theology.   It was a project of the prodigiously energetic  Dr Ralph McInerny .)  ----------------------- This quote is from Dr Andres'  first lesson on Logic at the Catholic Thinkers site .    Dr Andres writes: It might seem strange that we would need a part of logic devoted to understanding what is so simple, the bare idea of what something is, such as what a triangle is. But St. Thomas would respond that we begin with an indistinct understanding of what a triangle is, and that the idea of a triangle is perfected and made distinct when we find a definition of a triangle.  This is from  Lesson 2 , where he goes into detail about how and why we form definitions of words...

 I wrote the following some time ago but am posting it here even though it is kind of boring.   It seems to relate a bit to the last post on continuity.    ------------------------------ This seems like a pretty fair summary  of Dietrich von Hildebrand's  What is Philosophy ?   The author writes: [Hildebrand] seeks to investigate the phenomenology of knowing: to consider “what it is like” to know something, and to bring to light the essential structures of this fundamental act. Since we are all humans, any of us can consider from personal experience " what it is like " to know something.    Hildebrand starts with the act of "taking cognizance of" something.  That formulation sounds like it would read better in German or Greek, but he uses it to describe the initial act of knowledge, before judgment or assertion.    We come to know something by a receptive but not altogether passive process;  Knowing has an acti...

From excerpts of an article by Dietrich von Hildebrand, at New Liturgical Movement   -- three types of men or ways to live. I'm quoting it because it also seems to epitomize three different approaches to the internet, especially to the news cycle.   The first one seems like the default. If a man lived only in separate moments, without any link between them, if he did not know himself as the same being in the past and present, if all that he experienced and accomplished and all that was revealed to him sank back into nothingness before the actual contact with the new "now," he would be only a bundle of disconnected experiences. He would be deprived of the dimension of depth... There are unconscious men, always completely absorbed in the present moment. What has happened to them in the past, what moved and filled them, fades away as soon as a new, strong impression takes possession of them. They are capable of feeling these strong impressions, but these are not rooted in t...

 "Do you want to grasp the majesty of God?  First grasp the humility of God.....When you grasp the humility of God, then you will rise with Him."  St Augustine, Sermon 117 John Betz quotes this at the beginning of his article on The Humility of God .   His aim, as I mentioned in the last post , is to put the two theological positions, of Balthasar and contemporary Thomism, into conversation with each other.       He mentions Erich Przywara , specifically his work on the analogia entis , as a potential bridge between Balthasar's ideas on the humility of God and the concerns of Thomists on the subject.      Przywara was mentor to Balthasar and to Edith Stein, notably, but is no longer well known.     From the review on Betz's book on Przywara's thought: Przywara aims, ultimately, to defend philosophically a declaration of the Fourth Lateran Council: "Because a similitude between the creator and the creature cannot ...

  What then is humility? To be lowly minded. And he is lowly minded who humbles himself, not he who is lowly by necessity. To explain what I say; and do ye attend; he who is lowly minded, when he has it in his power to be high minded, is humble, but he who is so because he is not able to be high minded, is no longer humble. For instance, If a King subjects himself to his own officer, he is humble, for he descends from his high estate; but if an officer does so, he will not be lowly minded; for how? He has not humbled himself from any high estate. It is not possible to show humble-mindedness except it be in our power to do otherwise.    St John Chrysostom  Still thinking about the humility and kenosis of God .    John Chrysostom has a series of homilies on Philippians, and here is the one on the 2nd chapter .   Here is another .       Nova et Vetera turns out to have had a symposium on kenosis in its summer 2019 edit...

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God,     did not regard equality with God     as something to be exploited, 7 but  emptied himself ,     taking the form of a slave,     being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8     he humbled himself     and became obedient to the point of death—     even death on a cross.   Philippians 2 Larry Chapp has posted part 3 of a 5 part series on The Hermeneutics of Kenosis:  On the Humility and Kenosis of God .   You can find more posts of his on kenosis, here , including the earlier parts of the series. Kenosis is one of those words that you wouldn't think you would need very much, and indeed, I'm sure many saints and martyrs and ordinary Christians have gone from birth to death without hearing it.   But the concept the word represents is quite integral to Christianit...

 It looks like it was around  last Candlemas , so just about a year ago, that I started reading Cardinal JH Newman's An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine .   A year later almost to the day, I have got to the last page.   I've been trying to figure out for a few days how to write about the book; it seems to call for an approach suited to its particular style.   I may not be the one to do that, however!   There are some very notable theologians who have studied Newman.   Ian Ker, Aidan Nichols, and Louis Bouyer are a few who come to mind.   I'll start by linking to the posts where I talked about the book, mostly from a year ago.   Since I haven't written consistently on here for a while, perhaps that will also give me a chance to review what I was thinking when I started reading it. January 27:   Councils, Controversies and Communio .   This is probably the line of thinking tha...