Saturday, June 22, 2019

Dawson: Humanism and the New Order

(The eminent historian Christopher H. Dawson's explanation of humanisn adds further light to Maritain's view in the previous post.)

"THE Renaissance has its beginnings in the self-discovery, the self-realization and self-exaltation of Man. Medieval man had attempted to base his life on the supernatural. His ideal of knowledge was not the adventurous quest of the human mind exploring its own kingdom; it was an intuition of the eternal verities which is itself an emanation from the Divine Intellect─irradiatio et participatio primae lucis. The men of the Renaissance, on the other hand, turned away from the eternal and the absolute to the world of nature and human experience. They rejected their dependence on the supernatural, and vindicated their independence and supremacy in the temporal order. But thereby they were gradually led by an internal process of logic to criticize the principles of their own knowledge and to lose confidence in their own freedom. The self-affirmation of man gradually led to the denial of the spiritual foundations of his freedom and knowledge. This tendency shows itself in every department of modern thought. In philosophy, it leads from the dogmatic rationalism of Descartes and the dogmatic empiricism of Locke to the radical skepticism of Hume and the subjectivism of later German thought. Reason is gradually stripped of its prerogatives until nothing is left to it but the bare "as if" of Vaihinger."

~Christopher H. Dawson: Christianity and the New Age, Chap. I ─ Humanism and the New Order. (1931)



Maritain: Humanisn

"THE DEBATE that divides our contemporaries and that compels us all to make an election is between two conceptions of humanism: a "theocentric" conception, which is the Christian conception; and an "anthropocentric" conception, which has its first origins in the Spirit of the Renaissance. The first conception may be described as authentic humanism; the second conception may be called inhuman humanism."

~Jacques Maritain: Freedom in the Modern World.

Monday, June 10, 2019

The Holy Ghost Himself is Love

"The Holy Ghost is said to be the bond of the Father and Son, inasmuch as He is Love; because, since the Father loves Himself and the Son with one Love, and conversely, there is expressed in the Holy Ghost, as Love, the relation of the Father to the Son, and conversely, as that of the lover to the beloved. But from the fact that the Father and the Son mutually love one another, it necessarily follows that this mutual Love, the Holy Ghost, proceeds from both. As regards origin, therefore, the Holy Ghost is not the medium, but the third person in the Trinity; whereas as regards the aforesaid relation He is the bond between the two persons, as proceeding from both."

~St. Thomas Aquinas: "Summa Theologica," I, q. 37, a. 1, ad 3.

Blessed Trinity

℘ "The manner whereby God is in Himself as known in knower is described by the terms "generation," "father," "son," "word," all of which imply a special likeness. But the manner whereby God is in Himself as beloved in lover is described by the terms "breath" or "spirit": in this sense the Creed bids us believe in the Spirit."

─ "Compendium of Theology," 46.

℘ "The term "procession" within the Blessed Trinity signifies a coming forth from a principle and not necessarily a going out to an object, though the coming forth of the Holy Spirit, a coming forth of love, does imply a going out to another, namely to the beloved. And because the eternal comings forth are the cause and type of all creation, so it is that the begetting of the Son is the exemplar of all making, and the Father's loving of the Son is the exemplar of all granting of love to creatures. Hence the Holy Spirit Who is the  love whereby the Father loves the Son, is also the love whereby the Father loves creatures and imparts to them his goodness."

─ "Commentary on the Sentences," 1, 14, 1, 1.

℘ "The divine nature is really and entirely identical with each of the three persons, all of whom can therefore be called one: 'I and the Father are one' (Jn. 10:30)."

─ "Disputations concerning the Union of the Word Incarnate," 2.

~St. Thomas Aquinas

(Artwork: Disputation on the Trinity, by Andrea del Sarto. Oil on wood, A.D. 1517; Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence)

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