"THE hope of the coming of a new Christian era in our civilization is to my mind a hope for a distant future, a very distant future."
~Jacques Maritain: The Range of Reason. (1952)
Monday, April 23, 2018
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Maritain: "A free people needs a free press"
“WHAT CAN BE the weapons of the people to protect themselves and the body politic either against false servants of the people and the spurious shock-minorities or against the corruption of true servants of the people and genuine prophetic shock-minorities shifting from the struggle for freedom to the struggle for domination? Nothing can replace in this connection the strength of the common ethos, the inner energy of democratic faith and civil morality in the people themselves, the enjoyment by them of real freedom in their everyday life and of a truly human standard of living, and the active participation of them in political life from the bottom up. If these conditions are lacking, the door is open to deception.
“Yet there is in any case a weapon which they should particularly treasure as a bulwark of their political liberties. Namely the freedom of expression and criticism. That’s a new reason to confirm what has been said in this chapter about the freedom of the press and of the means of expression of thought, even at the price of great risks,—still less great than the loss of liberty. A free people needs a free press, I mean free from the State, and free from economic bondage and the power of money.
~Jacques Maritain: Excerpt from Man and the State, Chap. V.—The Democratic Charter.
“Yet there is in any case a weapon which they should particularly treasure as a bulwark of their political liberties. Namely the freedom of expression and criticism. That’s a new reason to confirm what has been said in this chapter about the freedom of the press and of the means of expression of thought, even at the price of great risks,—still less great than the loss of liberty. A free people needs a free press, I mean free from the State, and free from economic bondage and the power of money.
* * *
“I have said that democracy cannot do without the prophetic element; that it is a sad necessity; or, rather, that in a democracy which has come of age, in a society of free men, expert in the virtues of freedom and just in its fundamental structures, the prophetic function would be integrated in the normal and regular life of the body politic, and issue from the people themselves. In such a society inspiration would rise from the free common activity of the people in their most elementary, most humble communities. By choosing their leaders, at this most elementary , through a natural and experiential process, as fellow-men personally known to them and deserving their trust in the minor affairs of the community, the people would grow more and more conscious of political realities and more ready to choose their leaders, at the level of the common good of the body politic, with true political awareness, as genuine deputies for them.”~Jacques Maritain: Excerpt from Man and the State, Chap. V.—The Democratic Charter.
Friday, April 13, 2018
Thursday, April 5, 2018
"What is the "esse" a thing possesses?"
By Armand Maurer
PROPERLY speaking, being (esse) belongs only to those things that are truly beings (entia), namely substances or subsistent things. Being can be attributed to non-subsistent items, such as accidents, forms, and parts, but strictly speaking these do not have being, being is ascribed to them because through them or because of them substances have being in some special way, as for example a man is wise through the quality of wisdom.
The notion of esse does not emerge very clearly from St. Thomas’ analysis of metaphysical terms in chapter one. The word appears several times in its technical sense, but it is left unexplained. Attention is focused on the notion of ens (‘a being’), from whose analysis the notion of essence is then disengaged as that in which and through which a thing possesses being (esse); but what is the esse a thing possesses?
Later chapters make it clear that esse is an actuality received by a thing’s essence, which in turn is potential to it. It is outside the definition of the essence and it forms a composition with the essence. In God, esse is his essence; he does not possess esse but is esse itself. Esse, understood purely and simply, contains all perfections. Thus as we read On Being and Essence we come to realize that its most important term is esse. A being is a being only because it has esse; an essence is an only through the esse that posits it in reality. But what is esse? This is the question that plagues the reader throughout the treatise and which no clear answer is given. But at least we are told the direction in which to look: the mystery of being esse is identical with God; if we knew what esse is, we would know the essence of God, for only in him is esse an essence or nature. In creatures esse does not have the status of an essence; they have essences which are other than esse and which exists by participating in the divine esse.
The identification of God with pure esse warns us that for St. Thomas being is not the mere fact that a thing exists, or is present in the world. If this were the meaning of esse, it would hardly make sense to call God esse tantum: nothing but being, or pure being. In fact, esse is dynamic and energizing act, as Gerald B. Phelan well describes it: “Things which ‘have being’ are not ‘just there’ (Dasein) like lumps of static essence, inert, immovable, unprogressive and unchanging. The act of existence (esse) is not a state, it is an act, the act of all acts, and, therefore, must be understood as act and not as any static and definable object of conception. Esse is dynamic impulse, energy, act – the first, the most persistent and enduring of all dynamisms, all energies, all acts. In all things on earth the act of being (esse) is the consubstantial urge of nature, a restless, striving force, carrying each being (ens) onward, from within the depths of its own reality to its full self-achievement, i.e., fully to be what by its nature it is apt to become.”
—Excerpt from Armand Maurer's introduction to
PROPERLY speaking, being (esse) belongs only to those things that are truly beings (entia), namely substances or subsistent things. Being can be attributed to non-subsistent items, such as accidents, forms, and parts, but strictly speaking these do not have being, being is ascribed to them because through them or because of them substances have being in some special way, as for example a man is wise through the quality of wisdom.
The notion of esse does not emerge very clearly from St. Thomas’ analysis of metaphysical terms in chapter one. The word appears several times in its technical sense, but it is left unexplained. Attention is focused on the notion of ens (‘a being’), from whose analysis the notion of essence is then disengaged as that in which and through which a thing possesses being (esse); but what is the esse a thing possesses?
Later chapters make it clear that esse is an actuality received by a thing’s essence, which in turn is potential to it. It is outside the definition of the essence and it forms a composition with the essence. In God, esse is his essence; he does not possess esse but is esse itself. Esse, understood purely and simply, contains all perfections. Thus as we read On Being and Essence we come to realize that its most important term is esse. A being is a being only because it has esse; an essence is an only through the esse that posits it in reality. But what is esse? This is the question that plagues the reader throughout the treatise and which no clear answer is given. But at least we are told the direction in which to look: the mystery of being esse is identical with God; if we knew what esse is, we would know the essence of God, for only in him is esse an essence or nature. In creatures esse does not have the status of an essence; they have essences which are other than esse and which exists by participating in the divine esse.
The identification of God with pure esse warns us that for St. Thomas being is not the mere fact that a thing exists, or is present in the world. If this were the meaning of esse, it would hardly make sense to call God esse tantum: nothing but being, or pure being. In fact, esse is dynamic and energizing act, as Gerald B. Phelan well describes it: “Things which ‘have being’ are not ‘just there’ (Dasein) like lumps of static essence, inert, immovable, unprogressive and unchanging. The act of existence (esse) is not a state, it is an act, the act of all acts, and, therefore, must be understood as act and not as any static and definable object of conception. Esse is dynamic impulse, energy, act – the first, the most persistent and enduring of all dynamisms, all energies, all acts. In all things on earth the act of being (esse) is the consubstantial urge of nature, a restless, striving force, carrying each being (ens) onward, from within the depths of its own reality to its full self-achievement, i.e., fully to be what by its nature it is apt to become.”
—Excerpt from Armand Maurer's introduction to
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Wednesday, April 4, 2018
"Truth is a divine thing"
"THAT truth should be preferred to friends he [Aristotle] proves in this way. He is the greater friend for whom we ought to have the greater consideration. Although we should have friendship for both truth and our fellow man, we ought rather to love truth because we should love our fellow man especially on account of truth and virtue, as will be shown in the eighth book (1575-1577). Now truth is a most excellent friend of the sort to whom the homage of honor is due. Besides, truth is a divine thing, for it is found first and chiefly in God. He concludes, therefore, that it is virtuous to honor truth above friends."
~St. Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the 'Nicomachean Ethics', Book I, lect. 6.
● Read more from St. Thomas' Commentary
~St. Thomas Aquinas: Commentary on the 'Nicomachean Ethics', Book I, lect. 6.
● Read more from St. Thomas' Commentary
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| "Aristotle" by Enea Vico. Engraving, A.D. 1546; British Museum, London |
"The passion and death of the Son of God"
“Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried.”
"IT IS just as necessary for the Christian to believe in the passion and death of the Son of God as it is to believe in His Incarnation. For, as St. Gregory says, “there would have been no advantage in His having been born for us unless we had profited by His Redemption.” That Christ died for us is so tremendous a fact that our intellect can scarcely grasp it; for in no way does it fall in the natural way of our understanding. This is what the Apostle says: “I work in your days, a work which you will not believe, if any man shall tell it to you” [Acts 13:41, from Hab 1:5]. The grace of God is so great and His love for us is such that we cannot understand what He has done for us. Now, we must believe that, although Christ suffered death, yet His Godhead did not die; it was the human nature in Christ that died. For He did not die as God, but as man."
~St. Thomas Aquinas: The Apostles' Creed, Art. 4. (excerpt)
● Continue reading The Apostles' Creed
"IT IS just as necessary for the Christian to believe in the passion and death of the Son of God as it is to believe in His Incarnation. For, as St. Gregory says, “there would have been no advantage in His having been born for us unless we had profited by His Redemption.” That Christ died for us is so tremendous a fact that our intellect can scarcely grasp it; for in no way does it fall in the natural way of our understanding. This is what the Apostle says: “I work in your days, a work which you will not believe, if any man shall tell it to you” [Acts 13:41, from Hab 1:5]. The grace of God is so great and His love for us is such that we cannot understand what He has done for us. Now, we must believe that, although Christ suffered death, yet His Godhead did not die; it was the human nature in Christ that died. For He did not die as God, but as man."
~St. Thomas Aquinas: The Apostles' Creed, Art. 4. (excerpt)
● Continue reading The Apostles' Creed
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| Crucifixion with Mourners and Sts Dominic and Thomas Aquinas, by Fra Angelico. Fresco, A.D. 1441-42; Convento di San Marco, Florence. |
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