The Church teaches that interpretation of the Bible must be done within “the living Tradition of the whole Church”. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and…
If I am waiting, hoping, looking, or longing for some subjective feeling or other to certify my belief in God, I am barking up the wrong tree. Completely. Not to pick on them especially (because they are by no means…
In our last episode, I examined the Reformed/Presbyterian notion that Scripture is the “infallible interpreter” of Scripture. This model of exegesis does not work, I argued, because the Bible is an object and objects do not interpret themselves. Interpretation is…
In my last post, I said that the Protestant has made himself the measure of all things when it comes to the Bible: he will decide for himself what the Bible teaches. This amounts to a sort of “baptized Renaissance…
Quoth The Philosopher: A well-educated man will expect exactness in every class of subjects, according as the nature of the thing admits. (Nicomachean Ethics) In short: the subject matter determines the degree of certitude we may have about our conclusions…
Quoth the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church: Those who proclaim themselves to be the sole measure of realities and of truth cannot live peacefully in society with their fellow men and cooperate with them. (CSDC §142) Truth…
There is an old saying: “Those who can’t, teach.” So we get a snicker at the expense of someone who is more expert when talking than doing. One kind of person is clever at teaching others, yet is no good…
It is easy, perhaps, for a lay Catholic to become intimidated by the sheer volume of dogmatic truths to which we give our assent. The Catechism alone is over 800 pages! Toss in hundreds of pages of Ott and Denzinger…
Aristotle has this to say about question-begging with respect to the allegedly self-evident: [W]henever a man tries to prove what is not self-evident by means of itself, then he begs the original question. (Prior Analytics, II.16) For a theological example,…
Aquinas, Etc. 
No room for black-or-white thinking
Posted in Charity, Comment Guidelines, Fides et Ratio