Diverging slightly from Sungenis

1) New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right, 2) HGL's F.B. writings : Diverging slightly from Sungenis, 3) From Catholic Cosmology Group, on Size of Universe, 4) Continued from Previous, Some Debate

Mark Shea and the “Synthesis of All Heresies”
http://galileowaswrong.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Mark_Shea_and_Synthesis_of_All_Heresies.pdf

Note that in the main the summing up of history is pretty correct, both as regards Hegelianism and as regards Patristics and Scholastics. I would like my readers to read the paper first, since I am disagreeing on certain points - including the question how to assess Mark Shea. But Robert Sungenis makes an invaluable scoop about how the text of St Augustine continues after that VERY over used - as the meme in which it is misused, not as the text it is - quote that I think pretty many of you know. As to good use of it, we may get some as soon as scientists start seeing how Heliocentrism and Darwinism break down.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In essence, Hegel taught that all knowledge is a product of an evolutionary or dialectical process in man’s thinking. There were three phases to man’s thinking:

• 1) Thesis
• 2) Antithesis
• 3) Synthesis

Although theoretically the Hegelian dialectic can be applied to any historical movement ...

My comment

As far as I have understood Hegel applies it to EVERYTHING in the cosmos.

• Being. Non-being. Annihiliation.
• Annihiliation. Coming-Into-Being. Change.
• Change. Non-change. Slowing down.
• Slowing down. Speeding up. Changing speed.
• Changing speed. Constant speed. Stabilisation.

... and so on. And on Hegel's view that is where we come from.

[One can add that on Hegel's view, this Hegelian dielactic in human thought mimics the Hegelian dialectic of being as such, of the Absolute.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Conversely, Catholicism teaches that we can, indeed, know various things for certain since they are presupposed as coming from divine revelation, which always tells the real and unadulterated truth.

My comment

Not JUST from divine revelation. Also even naturally knowable things.

Creation vs. Evolution : Romans 1:20 and Dawkins, Richard
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/romans-120-and-dawkins-richard.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

On his blog for March 26, 2014, Mr. Shea posted his latest diatribe, “Puny Humans, Vast Universe,” which, in a few words, tries to assume a middle position, or Synthesis, between the new television series, Cosmos, and our movie, The Principle.2 From his caricatures of the two features, it is obvious Mr. Shea believes his position to be the only sane and cogent of the three options.

My comment

He might with somewhat more probability be referring to Chesterton's observation that - I will add: though not reached in fact be Hegelian dialectic - the Catholic position on any question is usually the sane middle between two extremes.

Neither Pelagian nor Calvinist:

Great Bishop of Geneva! : Rejecting Pelagius and Calvin
http://greatbishopofgeneva.blogspot.com/2014/03/rejecting-pelagius-and-calvin.html

Neither idolising drunkenness nor teetotalism. Neither Materialist nor Pagan. Neither Polytheist nor Unitarian. And so on.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Cites one post by Mark Shea and my answer with which he agrees, see his paper, and politely adds:] Thank you, Mr. Lundahl.

My comment

You are welcome.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Basically, Catholic liberals and modernists are people who teach that much of Scripture’s testimony on history is false. For example, they believe that various accounts in Old Testament (Adam and Eve, the Flood, ...

My comment

Here is his view:

Catholic and Enjoying It : Tee, as they say, Hee
April 2, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/tee-as-they-say-hee-2.html

Here is my answer:

New blog on the kid : T'Ignore or Not Ignore?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/04/t-ignore-or-not-ignore.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea is merely one of the more visible and popular purveyors of this modernist hermeneutic but certainly not the most intellectually gifted or the deepest thinker. As he himself once said on his own masthead: “Where no stupid comment on any topic went left unsaid,” or something to that effect.

My comment

He is admitting he is not knowledgeable enough about history to answer a question like the following:

Catholic and Enjoying It : A reader has a question for somebody knowledgable in history
March 31, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/a-reader-has-a-question-for-somebody-knowledgable-in-history.html

I answered:

HGL's F.B. writings : Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2014/03/mark-shea-asking-for-commenter-he.html

"once said" ... yes, I still see the cartoon character, but no longer the self depreciating comment that went with it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Thesis: The Bible claims to provide authentic narratives of historical events.

Antithesis: Modern science has shown these historical events never took place; and that all cultures were prone to create mythical stories to compensate for their ignorance about the universe.

Synthesis: Most of the Bible is made up of myths and only a fraction of it has real truth.

My comment

That is not so much Hegelian dialectics as an ordinary Aristotelian syllogism. With number two as erroneous though backed up by prefix Moden Science has shown. With an erroneous premiss you can get an erroneous conclusion.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

For example, although modern Catholic apologists often attempt to cast Pope Urban VIII’s 1633condemnation of Galileo as if it was prompted by Urban’s pride for believing that Galileo had insulted him in his book, the Dialogo, that accusation is simply not true.

My comment

Pope Urban VIII kept out of the trial himself so as to avoid being a biassed judge.

But over and above the charge being false, it is often spiced with "Galileo brought it on himself for having an attitude problem". Now that has a few implications a bit TOO spicy for me:

1) attitude problems are as serious as doctrinal problems or more so - false. At least for most attitude problems. Hatred of God is indeed more serious than mere heresy or apostasy.

2) the Church has a right to impede printing and shut up in reclusion at home, in a lifelong house arrest, people with attitude problems, even if they are right. False. Assuming Galileo had been right, the Church could at most have had an excuse for believing he was wrong (independently of the attitude problem) and an excuse for believing to be in Her rights in punishing him. But having an excuse for shooting a man on a hunt while believing it is a moose does not amount to a right to shoot men who look for a moment like a moose.

3) this right to deal with people who might be perfectly right but have attitude problems persists to this day. False, since such a right was not in question for the Church even then.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

The real truth is, Pope Urban was beside himself with fear over what Galileo’s doctrine would do to the Church.

My comment

This also looks more like searching excuses than like justifying.

If true, he at least left the judgement to judges with more level reason, but what I have seen from his character otherwise (like portraits and the fact he made a new Church for St Bibiana) suggests to me this is false.

Ouch, there seems to be sth for this way of looking at Pope Urban VIII:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, quoting a contemporary of process

Yesterday I did not have the time to report to Your Most Illustrious Lordship what had transpired (in a very emotional atmosphere) between myself and the Pope in regard to Mr. Galilei’s work….I too am beginning to believe…that the sky is about to fall. While we were discussing those delicate subjects of the Holy Office, His Holiness exploded in great anger, and suddenly he told me that even our Galilei had dared enter where he should not have, in the most serious and dangerous subjects which could be stirred up at this time. I replied that Mr. Galilei had not published without the approval of his ministers….He answered, with the same outburst of rage, that he had been deceived by Galileo and Ciampoli…

[(Niccolini to Cioli, 5-IX-1632)

Same letter:]

He said that he had prohibited works which had his pontifical name in front and were dedicated to himself, and that in such matters, involving great harm to religion (indeed the worst ever conceived), His Highness [the Grand Duke] too should contribute to preventing it, being a Christian prince….I retorted that…I did not believe His Holiness would bring about the prohibition of the already approved book without at least hearing Mr. Galilei first. His Holiness answered that this was the least ill which could be done to him and that he should take care not to be summoned by the Holy Office; that he has appointed a Commission of theologians and other persons versed in various sciences, serious and of holy mind, who are weighing every minutia, word for word, since one is dealing with the most perverse subject one could ever come across….Finally, he told me to write to our Most Serene Patron that the doctrine is extremely perverse, that they would review everything with seriousness, and that His Highness should not get involved but should go slow; furthermore, not only did he impose on me the secret about what he had just told me, but he charged me to report that he also was imposing it on His Highness [the Grand Duke].

My comment

As far as temper goes, this reminds me of Moderns. Hope Niccolini was suffering from pseudo-empathy and attributing emotions to Pope Urban VIII which were more violent than the Pope's real ones.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Later:]

He [the pope] retorted that in cases where religion might suffer damage, it was less harmful to overreact occasionally than to be remiss as a result of the reasons I mentioned, and thus to endanger Christianity with some sinister opinion; furthermore, he had been told by His Holiness that, since we are dealing with dangerous dogmas, His Highness [the Grand Duke, Cosimo Medici] should put aside all respect and affection toward his Mathematician and be glad to contribute himself to shielding Catholicism from any danger.

My comment

The ethics of the Inquisition. But in a day when it legally existed.

Now, these days, I think some are using a non-extant Inquisition to silence Geocentrics and Creationists. By setting up amateur Inquisitions.

He added that one is dealing with new doctrines and Holy Scripture, that the best course is to follow the common opinion

Now, that is a criterium, which if not followed up over Centuries Past is likely to be hurtful to Geocentrism.

[To a common man, following it up over the centuries might not be the first reaction. But in Pope Urban's day he was very much in a position to know - if the question had been raised - that he was indeed speaking for the common opinion not just of Catholics (and even Schismatics and Heretics) contemporary to him, but of Centuries Past excepting isolated cases among the Greeks in pre-Christian times. Today, the élite know very well they are not following up "the common opinion" over Centuries Past, even if they fondly imagine to be following the common opinion of Centuries Future (and unknown, even unknown whether they will at all happen), even common men are prone to depreciate "the common opinion" of Centuries Past, knowing they do so, and all know very well how Government Run Acacemic and Scholarly Institutions have contributed to the change. All know the change of opinion was not by millions of adults freely debating the evidence, but millions of children being indoctrinated by a small élitist minority, and parents being shown some evidence to calm their qualms about what was being done to their children.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Dei Verbum:]

the books of Scripture, firmly, faithfully and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided to the sacred Scriptures.

My comment

The same claim that Trent claimed for the Vulgate. Trent claimed a lot more of inerrancy for the Bible as such or for the first manuscript of each hagiographer.

[Note that if the Vulgate had been perfactly inerrant, we could in all confidence doctrinalise the Time Line of Ussher. However, St Jerome based a similar time line, read in Christmas proclamation, on the LXX. The Universe was 5199 years old when God was born in Bethlehem.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

the Modernists want us to accept that Scripture is only without error when it speaks on salvation, and it is not inerrant, and thus not reliable, when it speaks about anything else, including history and the cosmos. This was a view of Scripture never before taught in the whole history of the Catholic Church.

My comment

Quite true. I have seen a quote attributed to Galileo in which he takes the exact same view. It was new and radical in his time.

Much more so than mere Heliocentrism. Bad as that is, for diverse reasons (just as a revision along the lines of astrology suggesting Jacob and Esau had different horoscopes would also be very bad - though I have heard one astrologer argue Jacob's true horoscope was when his hand came out for a moment).

And if Galileo had been tried and found guilty for that, he would have burned. Unless he had recanted.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

as error-filled and fictional as the testimony of Bill Clinton telling us he “did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.”

My comment

His explanation is however very priceless. "That is not sex". Meaning, when we condemn the condom and the pill, we are really condemning non-sex. Same as with gay marriage. Catholicism is not against sex, She [the Church] is against Non-Sex.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

As we have seen, the Bible’s inerrancy was sacrificed primarily in order to make room for Copernicus and Galileo, with Darwin, Freud, Marx and a few other humanistic icons, running a close second.

My comment

All of those were on my no-no list when I still had the MSN Group Antimodernism.

I was never a believer in Sagan, but I liked original Cosmos series.

I agree he is spot on:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

“But if the Bible is not everywhere literally true, which parts are divinely inspired and which are merely infallible and human? As soon as we admit there are scriptural mistakes (or concessions to the ignorance of the times), then how can the Bible be an inerrant guide to ethics and morals?”

[Ref. to Pale Blue Dot, pp. 40, 42. (Was there a picture on p. 41?)]

I wouldn’t doubt at all that the reason Mark Shea also appears soft on homosexuality (as noted in his defense of his homosexual friend, “Perry,” who lived with another homosexual male before he died last year, yet also claimed to be a practicing and devout Catholic) is that he has imbibed, in part or in whole, this “new way,” this Hegelian dialectic, of viewing Scripture.

My comment

I disagree.

HGL's F.B. writings : Oscar Wilde and Perry Lorenzo
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2012/12/oscar-wilde-and-perry-lorenzo.html

And as for the suggestion Mark Shea is soft on, not homosexuals as people, but homosexuality as a way of life, see this:

Catholic and Enjoying It : There’s a Little Moment in Jurassic Park I Think of
April 4, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/04/theres-a-little-moment-in-jurassic-park-i-think-of.html

Relevant quote:

That’s what I think of as the Gay Legion of Menacing Visigoths for Tolerance continues its ruthless and pitiless extirpation of all who are guilty of Thoughtcrime for failing to hail homosex as the Source and Summit of all that is noble, pure, good, and glorious. Tolerance is not enough. You. MUST. Approve. And God help you if the Thought Police discover anything in your past revealing dissent from the regime. Punishment will be swift and merciless. Because Diversity and Freedom.

As we are there, there are no doubt some Catholic Liberals who still deny miracles. But both Mr. Darwin and Mark Shea have testified to believing miracles do occur. Mr. Darwin believes Joshua's Long Day. Mark Shea believes Multiplication of loaves really happened.

DarwinCatholic : Did Augustine and Aquinas Believe In A Literal Interpretation of Genesis
http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2014/02/did-augustine-and-aquinas-believe-in.html

Well, at least he believes the Resurrection:

Indeed, it is the very predictability of physical laws which makes the exceptions to them (miracles, such as the Resurrection) miraculous.

[Actually one can very much dispute the definition or characterisation of miracles as "exceptions to physical laws", they are the most obvious since only exceptional results of an Agency above these laws. And above the causes alias agencies they usually deal with.]

Quoting him, in that thread.

Here is Mark Shea being Orthodox on Loaves and Fishes:

New Catholic Register - Blog by Mark Shea - The Miracle of Caring and Sharing
by Mark Shea Wednesday, May 04, 2011 2:00 AM
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/mark-shea/the-miracle-of-caring-and-sharing

Relevant quote:

In the same way, one can play with the (exceedingly lame) “explanation” of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes where everybody was so moved by Jesus’ warm fuzziness that they all shared their lunches. The Church does not forbid this stupid way of reading the text, just as the Church has never issued an infallible decree that 2+2 does not equal five, nor a formal dogma that you should not play in traffic.

Nonetheless, all these things are wrong and stupid, as is the naturalistic reading of the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.

Quoting you again:

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Mark Shea seeks to make it appear that geocentrism makes the Catholic Church look like an antiscience, anti-modern, anti-establishment institution that simply refuses to budge even in the face of proof after proof that its traditional views have been discredited. I sometimes wonder that if modern science began to tout that there is “no proof” for a wafer of bread turning into the body and blood of Christ, whether someone like Mark Shea might be tempted to agree with it.

It wouldn’t be the first time. There was a whole movement begun by modernist Catholics coming out of Vatican II, led by Father Eduard Schillebeeckx, who were similarly “embarrassed” by the traditional Catholic doctrine of “transubstantiation.”

My comment

I have seen guys like that. They are more likely to be [cradle] Catholics with qualms about repression of Huguenots or Collaboration with Nazis, [or for that matter over Galileo case] than converts from Evangelical religion, such as Mark Shea.

Indeed, the fact that Mark Shea is a friend of Keating makes the suggestion impossible. Catholic Answers started as a defence of Transubstantiation and Sacrifice of Holy Mass in face of attacks from Protestants in the area.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

In effect, Shea will accept the unproven theories of atheistic scientists and sacrifice the doctrines of traditional Catholicism in order to promote ecumenism.

My comment

No.

He is not that ecumenical. If by traditional Catholicism you do not mean the contemporary defense of it, but rather Catholicism as it traditionally is, Mark Shea is more ignorant of it than opposed to it.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Unfortunately, the cosmos of Genesis has become the biggest stumbling block for modernist Catholics because, quite simply, they just “know” that it can’t be right, thanks to Galileo and Darwin.

My comment

There you are a bit spot on again. Alas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Here’s challenge number 23 for you.

If you, Mark Shea, can provide just one scientific and indisputable proof that the Earth rotates and revolves around the Sun, I will give you $1,000.00.

If you can’t, then you owe me $1,000.00. Put your money where your mouth is, Mr. Shea, otherwise, shut up.

My comment

Maybe he doesn't have that money, and he is ignoring your challenge (to which you cannot bind him in advance without his consent) because he has some correct suspicions about the issue?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Quoting Mark Shea]

The answer is twofold. First, converts who were once Fundamentalists and who used to read Scripture literally become Catholic and proceed to read Scripture and Catholic documents literally.

R. Sungenis: Absolutely false. If there were any “Fundamentalists” in the world before the Protestants, their name was “Catholic”!

My comment

Actually even more: if there were Fundies between 1500 and 1900 there were Catholics among them. And Calvinism and Socinianism are the main roots of non-Literal exegesis. (Non-literal as opposed to Literal AND Allegoric, for instance).

Creation vs. Evolution : Why a Literalist should be a Papist and not a Barnesist
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2014/02/why-literalist-should-be-papist-and-not.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If not, how does Mr. Shea explain that of all the denominations and churches in the world, the Catholics are the only ones that interpret John 6:54 (“Whoever eats my body and drinks myblood has eternal life”) and Matthew 26:26 (“This is my body”) as literally as it can possibly be interpreted?

My comment

Catholics. Eastern Orthodox. Of Monophysites the Copts, previously also Armenians. I presume Nestorians too. Lutherans and some High Church Anglians also believe Real Presence. I think some of the newer denominations sometimes do so too.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ironically, it’s the Protestant “Fundamentalists” who refuse to interpret this passage literally!

My comment

True enough about Chick Tracts. And Karl Keating and Mark Shea (or Karl Keating at first and later Mark Shea) started out Catholic Answers to answer that.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

How does Mr. Shea explain the fact that the Catholics were the first and one of the only to interpret John 20:23 (“Whosever sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven”) as literally as it can be interpreted?

My comment

Again, and this time Armenians are included as well, this goes for all of the Churches with Apostolic Succession.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

It wasn’t until Darwin came along that a band of modernist and liberal “Catholics” decided that science had disproven a literal reading of Genesis.

My comment

I even think that as C S Lewis remained an Evolutionist at first (at first!) after his Christian conversion, it may have been the strictness of 1909 answers that made him prefer Anglicanism over Catholicism.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Heliocentrism is wrong because the Church said it was wrong; [...] the medievals said it was wrong,

My comment

There is a move in Academia to make out as if Buridan and Nicole d'Oresme (who died as Bishop of Lisieux) were saying it was right, when in fact they were merely saying it was thinkable and physically non-contradictory.

They said it was "possible" about as someone would [now] say it was "possible" to assume everything in the whole universe every day shrank to half the size of 24 h. earlier in every dimension. You cannot experimentally prove that wrong, since the meters and yardsticks would have shrunk too, but it is pointless and counterintuitive.

So is Heliocentrism.

The TOF Spot : What's Wrong With the Cosmos?
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2014/03/whats-wrong-with-cosmos.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If I hear this quote from Augustine taken out of context one more time I think I’m going to be sick.

[I guess you all know which one! Sungenis quotes it in his paper if you don't. Read it if you haven't.]

My comment

For my part I got angry and impatient. It is a bit like nagging, isn't it?

New blog on the kid : St Augustine was - Literally - a Young Earth Creationist and Geocentric, and he was Right
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/03/st-augustine-was-literally-young-earth.html

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

[Lovely, Sungenis quoting St Augustine a little bit later on in the text of De Genesi ad Literam:]

Taking these theories into account, a certain commentator [Basil] has made a praiseworthy attempt to demonstrate that the waters are above the heavens, so as to support the word of Scripture with the visible and tangible phenomena of nature.... Hence, from the existence of the air between the vapors that form the clouds above and the seas that stretch out below, our commentator proposed to show that there is a heaven between water and water. This painstaking enquiry is, in my opinion, quite praiseworthy.

My comment

If Mark Shea reads this he might go right and say "oh, really, I didn't know" (he very probably doesn't as long as he hasn't read your text). [I did not know previous to reading it either!] Part of the outbursts about trash bin worthy mails might be about your text, I am not sure he is reading it [and see what he is missing!]. But more to the point : how would he be able to know the passage? De Genesi ad Literam is one of the longer works available, and unlike Summa Theologiae and De Civitate Dei it is not on the web in English translation. [Only in books that may be rare.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

But Augustine goes even further in the next analysis, for now he tries to show that there are waters even above the starry heavens.

My comment

I have heard - thanks to youtube - that the two most common molecules in the universe (as in interstellar space) are H₂ and H₂O. In my theory H₂ would also qualify as "water" in Biblical language. H₂ was created when H₂O also give rise to the O₂ in the atmosphere.

And what would you call H₂ in Biblical terminology? Air or water? You cannot use it for breathing. If you mix it with air and add a spark (which can have happened in the Flood on more than one occasion) it will result in water.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Augustine will go on to argue that Saturn, which was then understood as a star, generates heat as it makes its orbit, but that it is cooled by the waters near it, above the heavens

My comment

It was as much "understood as a star" as whales and crayfish were understood as fishes in the Bible.

There are two "kinds of stars", fixed stars which stay in a fixed position in relation to the zodiak and also planets that have an own movement West to East along the zodiak. On top of all of above having a common movement East to West each day and night.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 quoting St Augustine

It is true, indeed, that by its own motion, moving over a vast space, it takes thirty years to complete its orbit; yet by the motion of the heavens it is rotated rapidly in the opposite direction...and therefore, it ought to generate greater heat by reason of its greater velocity.

My comment

He theorises that the daily motion is generating heat like we speak about heat by friction. If he is wrong, I think some other Church Fathers did not share the Greek Cosmological preseumptions he had. So that the error is NOT common to all the Church Fathers.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014, still quoting St Augustine

With this reasoning some of our scholars attack the position of those who refuse to believe that there are waters above the heavens while maintaining that the star whose path is in the height of the heavens is cold. Thus they would compel the disbeliever to admit that water is there not in a vaporous state but in the form of ice. But whatever the nature of that water and whatever the manner of its being there, we must not doubt that it does exist in that place. The authority of Scripture in this matter is greater than all human ingenuity.

My comment

Five states of water: ice, liquid, vapour, H₂, hydrogen plasma (as in Sun - but note that the Sun also contains a subsidiary process involving Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon, where Oxygen is another of the "ingredients" or rather constituents of water) on its way to make Helium (IF the theory is correct). But one of these certainly is there. And modern scientists have detected not just plasma but also H₂ and H₂O.

Kent Hovind had a theory in which waters above the firmament was just a preflood condition. I think some of the passages he used prove there are still waters above the firmament.

He has admitted as much, by the way.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014 (in his own words again)

That is, the Lord did not desire to give us detailed information as to what pushes or pulls the sun and moon around the Earth, or how it is that they keep such precise time year after year.

My comment

Not VERY detailed, but some guidelines, perhaps.

Daniel 3: [57] All ye works of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [58] O ye angels of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [59] O ye heavens, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [60] O all ye waters that are above the heavens, bless the Lord; praise and exalt him above all for ever.

[61] O all ye powers of the Lord, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [62] O ye sun and moon, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [63] O ye stars of heaven, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [64] O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever. [65] O all ye spirits of God, bless the Lord: praise and exalt him above all for ever.

The passage lacks in Jewish and Protestant Bibles!

Baruch 3:[32] But he that knoweth all things, knoweth her, and hath found her out with his understanding: he that prepared the earth for evermore, and filled it with cattle and fourfooted beasts: [33] He that sendeth forth light, and it goeth: and hath called it, and it obeyeth him with trembling. [34] And the stars have given light in their watches, and rejoiced: [35] They were called, and they said: Here we are: and with cheerfulness they have shined forth to him that made them.

Book lacking in Jewish and Protestant Bibles.

Job 38:[7] When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody?

THIS verse remains even to them.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Hence, because the Lord taught them in Scripture that the sun and moon move around the Earth, it was for that very reason that St. Augustine and St. Thomas were both geocentrists, in opposition to the Greeks and Indians who were promoting heliocentrism.

My comment

Greeks at the time were not even promoting it. Authority of the senses would be the great reason (even to non-believers, see Romans 1:20) to be Geostatic and once roundness of earth is properly discovered since Vasco da Gama more precisely Geocentric.

Even atheists like Democritus and Lucretius were Geocentric. Indians may have included people thinking it [Heliocentrism] true, but these were marginal even among themselves and so much more to St Augustine and St Thomas.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

All these attempts, of course, are done in the face of the fact that Augustine believed firmly in geocentrism and defended it vigorously.

My comment

Sorry, Sungenis, "defended vigorously" implies someone was attacking it in his time. Who?

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

Ignoring these facts, heliocentric advocates will often appeal to Augustine’s general hermeneutical principles concerning the need to be cautions when science and Scripture seem to clash,

My comment

While they suppose this was his main general hermeneutical principle (the quote so over used). Ignoring he stated his real general principles in book I chapter 1. But, as said, the twelve books of that work are not available online.

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

This quip came from one liberal cardinal, Baronius, during Galileo’s day, but the Church never adopted it as the truth. How could they, since it was that very Church in Baronius’ day that condemned Galileo?

My comment

Two points:

• 1) I have heard it attributed both to Galileo and to St Robert Bellarmine.
• 2) In the latter's mouth it certainly meant no disparagement of fact THAT the Heavens, rather than earth, are the ones that go.

Taken that way it is Orthodox. Holy Writ makes no very clear decision between flat or global earth, or between Geostasis in Flat Earth, Ptolemaic, or Tychonian Cosmology. But the Heavens do go. And if you think of it, very fast. And their staying together is either a miracle of construction or a miracle of good command over angels or both at the same time.

This is why, when defending Geocentrism, we are defending our eyes and part of the meaning of Romans 1:20.

[And I would not call Baronius a liberal.]

Quote from Sungenis 31-III-2014

If, in that process, one makes the argument that being in the center couldn’t happen by chance and therefore the universe came into being by the hand of a divine Creator (as opposed to what Krauss and Sagan tout, that is, that the universe created itself), then so be it.

My comment

It is rather stars staying in a periphery rotating so very fast [and staying in stable either positions for fixed stars or orbits for planets] that could not happen by chance. As well as the energy provided each day for the rotation, as per my debate under TOF Spot:

"I suppose I could have said that 'given the conservation of mass-energy in large-scale phenomena, we know that geocentrism is false'."

St Thomas did not subscribe to conservation of mass-energy in marge scale or other phenomena, since he was not identifying the NECESSARY BEING with mass-energy, but with God.

"If you are willing to postulate an influx of energy that keeps the sun circling a stationary earth, such energy having no other detectable effect, of course you can still proclaim geocentrism."

Geocentrism is major proof that God is, as UPHOLDER of the Universe, providing the "influx of energy" that makes not just Sun but indeed All Universe circle around a stationary earth each day.

And the detection of the influx is by the phenomena of day and night.

That is the easiest way of stating Prima Via.

I rest my case.

My additional comment 5-IV-2014

Two retractions, since I was tired yesterday!

1) If Pope Urban was worried about Heliocentrism threatening Christianity, he meant as threatening its doctrine, and he has the history since about his times in favour of his accuracy.

If Moderns are worried about Geocentrism threatening Christianity, they usually mean either socially "embarassing the faith", or if doctrinally they are defending some phoney derivative of "Thomism" which is more Averroist than Thomist, and perhaps even more Deist than Averroist.

2) If Pope Urban was overexcited at a moment, he was later calm. Plus, of course, he left the judgment to many others and was not involved himself once the process started before it was ended.

So, my comparison was lopsided.

Reflections on a stone block and on gruesome factory farming and more

I

Wall of John Médaille

a posting by another guy, named KH

KH's post

Upper piece of picture:

three men in the style of Egyptian Pyramid builders dragging a stone block with a desk and a boss on top of it.

Lower piece of same:

no more boss on top of stone block, but a leader at same time showing the way and adding a fourth piece of muscle strength to the dragging.

HGL

putting it like that verges on idiocy.

KH

I see it as contrasting Pharao's approach with Christ's. (Instead if merely dictating one leads by example.)

HGL

There is a problem here.

Christ indeed set an example, but he is NOT requiring everyone to get onto Calvary with loads of wood on the back and get nailed hands and feet until suffocating slower than a halal slaughtered sheep dies.

That was the theological one. On the Economic level, a heavy stone is a heavy stone, and too gavey for three men to carry with a boss sitting on it, but still too heavy for four men, including the boss acting as leader instead, to carry as well.

On the level of twenty men, it is hardly harder to drag it with one man on top than with a twentyfirst man dragging.

And the distributist thing for the four men would be not to drag the block at all, but to part it in four pieces and start sculpting each in his piece.

And each of the four men would in that Distributist picture have the designation neither of boss nor of leader, but of craftsman.

II

Wall of friend

crying, showing a picture with text: Disgraceful! The egg industry grinds baby male chicks alive because they're "useless." Who agrees that this is terrible?

LKG

It's terrible, but what are they supposed to do with them?

friend

Well, not grind them up alive! That is just barbaric. When there is a very problematic situation, it usually it due to a larger, foundational problem, and one must fix it, and the root of this problem is…factory farming. It is just unnatural. What did they use to do? Well, before factory farming, they would have never had this massive amount of male chicks to dispose of, and I suppose they did used to serve a purpose - as alarm clocks!

WH

Excess roosters were eaten at a young age. These are probably a scrawny breed adapted for the highest egg production, so not so good for eating but could be stewed and provide mineral-rich bone broth if raised on pasture. Most people in the past who were raising chickens for home use chose a multi-purpose breed that was good for eating and egg production.

friend

Yes, there is no answer to this solution, except for getting rid of factory farming.

LKG

That's true, but it's not likely to happen. Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began. Think about this for a moment. The chicks used to be thrown alive into garbage bags, where they would most likely suffocate, and the rest would die of starvation. They are so small that I'm sure they die quickly when they are ground up, and the remains are then useful as pet food or fertilizer. We raised chickens when I was growing up. There is no way to tell what gender the chick will be before it hatches, and only some Orientals can tell the gender immediately after hatching. We could tell, in time, and then all but one rooster had to be separated from the hens, or they would kill each other. We butchered all but one of the roosters as soon as they got big enough to eat, and we did eat them, but rooster meat is not as tender or tasty as hen meat, which is why there is no market for the male chicks.

RC

This cannot be true. Except that it can.

HGL

LKG, unfortunately it has happened that ground up chickens have been used to feed chickens.

"Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper, and that is what most people will buy, which is why factory farming first began."

Factory farming is providing food that is cheaper. Nike is providing shoes that are cheaper. Coca and Pepsi are providing drinks that are cheaper. People live in houses of concrete module over concrete module that are cheaper. Everyone is living a cheaper life.

Could it be that the craze for producing cheaper is impoverishing people employed in these cheaper productions, so that more people are nowadays FORCED to buy cheaper? Hmm?

Factory farming makes life less expensive except for farmers. Nike makes life less expensive except for Nike factory employees. Coca and Pepsi make life cheaper except for Coca and Pepsi employees. Hold on, who is NOT loosing at some one end? Perhaps the out-of-work, the unemployed? Well, there are more of those these days!

LKG

Very true, Hans-Georg Lu[n]dahl. So few people see this, which is part of why it is so difficult to reverse it.

HGL

This is part of why I am writing. And also a reason why I offer conditions favourable to small printers.

HGL's F.B. writings : Be my Unwin or Hooper if you like.
http://hglsfbwritings.blogspot.com/2011/09/be-my-unwin-or-hooper-if-you-like.html

Unfortunately, favourable conditions for printing my essays on small scale locally are not quite enough to keep an organic farm going.

III

Friend quoting a Distributist

"Both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life." – Thomas Storck

HGL

[linking to this adress, while only first one was here.]

Paul D

Thank goodness for capitalism, though. Imagine how hard life would be without it.

HGL

How hard? Oh, without Ford you would not have a car to drive one hour to the job? Just that, under Middle Ages, usually European city dwellers were not taking an hour to get to their job. Usually a master craftsman would wake up and eat his breakfast upstairs and walk to the job and the business downstairs in the same house.

IV

Friend

I used to be "pro privatisation" - back when I followed mainstream "conservative" politics. Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages), I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised. The latter is just as bad as federally-owned, if not worse, and is very capitalistic. Of course, the government should be non-profit.

DC

Practical Distributism : Distributism Basics: The Nature and Roles of Government http://practicaldistributism.blogspot.com/2014/01/distributism-basics-nature-and-roles-of.html

Friend

I am pro-distributism, of course, but could you please tell me your thoughts on this post? I will, of course, open the link, and read its contents.

DC

Well, as I am the author of the post, i think it's great!

I try to make the point that local issues should be handled by local authorities.

Friend

By "this post," I meant "my post."

DC

I agree with the statement. Remote government entities are too far removed from the problem to make them effective at solving local problems. That doesn't mean that they can't assist in some way (as I state in my article), but if the government is involved, it should be the local government which is more directly answerable to the people impacted by their decisions and policies. This means that the people in the community will have the greatest ability of oversee government assistance within their community.

HGL

"Since practical solutions are needed to solve modern day problems (i.e. we just can't undo eveything, and go back to the Middle Ages)"

Going back to the Middle Ages and undoing everything are two different proposals.

Some Government Agencies (I suppose you do not mean Post Offices) are intruding into people's lives.

Paul D

Yet nationalised orgs tend to be heavily unionised, inefficient and/or run for the benefit of the staff. Competition brings efficiency which benefits customers/citizens. Contrast the old east and west Germanys.

HGL

Any organisation is run either for the benefit of the staff or that of shareholders to some degree. Rather staff than shareholders.

Any organisation that needs coordination over the area of a nation state can as well be run by the state as private. There is an intermediate. The before private owner of a Spanish electricity company was made a duke or a count by Franco. So that he was a "private citizen" no more, but his company a feudal holding.

Paul D

A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers. State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly. One economist has estimated that the state costs twice as much as the private sector to do anything. Worse, the money used to pay for state-services is often obtained with the threat of force and/or by expropriation. Even if the state served us well, the foundation of its finances would be unethical.

HGL

Taxes are not per se unethical. Nor are monopolies to relieve tax pressure.

"A private organisation will only succeed if it pleases customers."

Not even always true, since certain ones enjoy a kind of monopoly or joint such, i e oligopoly due to Capitalism empoverishing general population to needing the Walmart and similar.

What is true is that it will only succeed if customers will buy there. Which due to levels of doles and of wages may involve some kind of force - especially if certain cities like Pensacola go Communist selectively against bums.

"State-undertakings (often monopolies) tend to escape market-pressure and consequently serve us badly."

Capitalist oligopolies tend to override normal market pressures, remodel the market and make market pressures serve nearly everyone badly.

A state can limit its monopolies to things that need nationwide coordination, like post offices.

"Contrast the old east and west Germanys."

Post offices were run by the State both sides of Berlin Wall. East Germany had its worst elements of societal make up totally distinct from the market liberal vs monopolistic question, like school monopoly (which alas West Germany also had, herited from Hitler) and Psychiatry and Social Services having a very large role in too many peoples' lives.

"I think it is better for a government agency to be run by the local government than for it to be privatised."

The only loan agencies allowed to take any interest at all in Lateran V was precisly a local government directed pawn broker, where interest could go to paying the clerks very modestly, or ideally that could be managed by taxes (and monopolies) to half the extent and only other half by interest.

But TV and Radio, I think the sector can be private.

Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked

1) HGL's F.B. writings : Mark Shea Asking For the Commenter he Blocked, 2) Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl : I had replied to John Horvath II about The One %, 3) John Ritchie Sent Me Mail

Mark Shea's Request:

Patheos > Catholic Channel > Catholic and Enjoying It!
A reader has a question for somebody knowledgable in history
March 31, 2014 By Mark Shea
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2014/03/a-reader-has-a-question-for-somebody-knowledgable-in-history.html

Quoting Letter from Reader:

I know “The Mission” isn’t depicting a particular set of priests, but the decision to throw the indigenous peoples under the bus after converting seemed to be a joint decision of the Catholic Hierarchy and corrupt Monarchs- what exactly was the role of Catholic Hierarchy in these Jesuit missions and decisions regarding their fate?

My answer:

If you recall the Marquis of Pombal, he was not the kind of guy to give Catholic Hierarchy much choice.

He and Madame Pompadour were active in forcing Jesuits out of:

• Portugal with Colonies (highly relevant for Reductions run by Jesuits)
• France with Colonies (relevant for Missionaries sent to Iroquois)
• Protection of the Papacy even.

My problem with posting my answer:

We are unable to post your comment because you have been blocked by Catholic and Enjoying It!. Find out more.

Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended

1)Explaining Holy Roman Empire in terms of comparing to US. - Pt I, 2 a) Part II, more on Guilds than on Holy Roman Empire, 2 b) Guilds and Distributism, Defined, Defended, 2 c) What Did Social Aid Look like in the Middle Ages? (Link, Quotes and Comment) Or was it sth else?, 3) Holy Roman Empire explained for US, but we are heading back for Rome now, Pt III

Friend, status :

You cannot be pro-capitalism AND be a Christian (a follower of Christ).

JG

Huh??

Friend

To be a capitalist does not mean to be hardworking, but to be clever, selfish, and greedy, and gain wealth from the hard work of others.

I will shortly give you an example of capitalism.

PFH (giving quite another definition of Capitalism, and thus speaking of quite another thing) :

break it down. From what I can tell, capitalism means owning things and exchanging them. I cannot see what part of that is sinful, inherently.

Obviously some exchanges can be bad. I hire a hitman, for instance, but it is not the exchange that made it bad. Murder is a sin regardless of weather or not money changes hands.

JG (agreeing with PFH’s definition)

Capitalism can mean to gain from the work of others, but that is definitely not the only way to define capitalism. I think it would be more correct to say "a Christian cannot be a greedy, selfish capitalist."

PFH

gaining from the work of others just means you do not live in isolation. But for the work of others, we would all be dead.

CM (giving the definition of the thing my friend objected to)

capitalism I think is more tied to the pooling of capital by investors and its relation to labor it is related to many other economic things... but I am not sure it is the same as some of these thigns

PFH

the word was invented by Marx as a slur term. It has no consistent meaning.

CM

that is always a problematic situation

JP

Leo XIII condemned capitalism in his encyclical Rerem Novarum.

Pius XI also wrote against capitalism but I forgot the name of the encyclical.

Paul D (probably equating « Capitalist » with « one owning much capital » ?)

It's quite a judgemental slur to suggest that capitalists are greedy. Many of us are charitable and hard-working.

PFH

JP, that is not actually true if you read the encyclical.

He actually condemned distributism.

No Unity Is Possible unless Heretics Return to the Catholic Church
http://www.traditioninaction.org/religious/n098_Ecumenism-04.htm

[Did he bluff or take the wrong link? Don't know.]

JP

I have read the encyclical and it speaks damnably of capitalism. What is called for is an economic system similar to the medieval guild system, distributism, or fascism.

PFH

the medieval system was capitalism, they were just poorer at the time

JP

Tradition in action are very wrong on economics, they also supported all the wars over the last several years, on some issues they show very bad will.

No the medieval system was not capitalism by any means. A modern day ayan rand capitalist would call them socialist probably. They had wage and price controls, they had government charity and most right wingers hate that.

HGL (=me, just so you know)

1) Rerum Novarum (Rerum, not Rerem, by Leo XIII)
2) Quadragesimo Anno (40 years after RN, by Pius XI)

As to the words "Capitalism" and "Capitalist" they are in fact of more than one meaning. The condemned version would be the kind that tries to amass more and more for a class comprising fewer and fewer and by exploiting the rest harder and harder.

And that was obviously NOT the medieval system, where ownership was accepted but restricted.

PFH, I will look into the claim that any Pope condemned Distributism, but I think not. Pope Leo XIII gave its basis by saying "more people should own property" (meaning thereby productive such). Eamonn DeValera was a very clear Distributist and never condemned by the Church as a Chief of State although he had been excommunicated while fighting for the IRB.

PFH

they did not have wage and price controls, maybe in the east. But not the west.

a guild was basically a franchise. they were not required but survived on reputation.

and please, I do not care about Ayn Rand. She would have heard they were christian and assumed they had socialism.... as would distributists. Regular people, and even pinkos are not that silly.

HGL

Sorry, but the heritage of Late Antiquity, which stayed in the East was Imperial wage and price control. The Guild system was localised wage and price control. It was locally decided whether a certain branch was or was not required to be guild members. The link you gave had nothing to do with Distributism, since Satis Cognitum is about and against Ecumenism. And local elections (including local representation to Parliament) was per guild in towns. Belloc voted in the Brewers Guild of London. This meant that the guilds that existed locally (and which could be compared to franchises exceopt such are usually infeuded to a central company, guilds arranged the rules democratically inside) were also the means of local democracy and as such the guilds were in a position to negotiate about relative price and wage levels.

JP

The guilds were nothing like franchises, they were like workers unions, a person was required to be a member to operate in any trade. They regulated wages and prices. They would even support the widow of a deceased member.

PFH

so, you honestly think, in England in the 1600s, if I sold you a shoe and I was not in a guild, the crown would behead me or something?

HGL

Like workers unions, not quite. They were Employers' unions. The employers (called masters) agreed on not competing with certain bids when it came to wages, working hours or prices.

That one was required to be part of it was different from town to town for any branch. And different from branch to branch within each town. A town with Jews obviously had one or two branches at least without obligation to Guilds since these were Catholic.

JP

The 1600s was after the English reformation had destroyed the old social order, they were then capitalist.

HGL

In the 1600's Guilds were very much weakened in England by Capitalism. If you were not a member of a guild and in a branch where the town required branch members to be guild members, you changed town, or branch of trade or tried to join the guild. Penalties were against shop, not body.

PFH

so, it was still legal for me, a non-guild member to sell you a shoe?

If so, that capitalism. If not, well, thats obviously terrible.

JP

Smith economics are a modern idea born of protestantism. Market control and social policies have been the tradition of the west all the way back to ancient Greece, just read Plato's Republic. Right wing ideology goes against the teachings of the Gospels.

BR

If you make up definitions on your own, it is hard to have a conversation.

The Lord Himself told the one fellow 'You should have put my money to the usurers'. Hard to say that is un-Christian.

HGL

He said that in one parabole in which "money" stands for the talents given by God and "doing business" stands for getting merits for Heaven. Luther was more horrified than even Leo X at Usury.

PFH, in one town you could sell your shoe without being a guild member, in another you could not. In a town you could not, if the cobblers' guild abused their position the town could decide that a non-guild master cobbler could seel the shoes he made.

BR

The story 'stands for' many things.

It is still a story in its own right.

The 'good guys' traded with their money, and made more.

The lazy guy should have at least put in the bank and drawn interest.

HGL

"interest" as in "within merits for Heaven" - when you apply the story. It is only within the story that it stands for interest as such. He took another parabole from an unjust Steward, does that mean cheating your master to get popular is a good thing to do?

What Our Lord thought of taking interest as such, he told us not even to expect to get the Capital back.

Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859 edition. : DEUTERONOMY - Chapter 23
http://haydock1859.tripod.com/id516.html

Ver. 20. To the stranger. This was a dispensation granted by God to his people, who being the Lord of all things, can give a right and title to one upon the goods of another. Otherwise the Scripture every where condemns usury, as contrary to the law of God, and a crying sin. See Exodus xxii. 25., Leviticus xxv. 36, 37., 2 Esdras v. 7., Psalm xiv. 5., and Ezechiel xviii. 8, 13, &c. (Challoner) --- The stranger means the devoted nations of Chanaan, &c., whom God authorized his people to destroy. "Exact usury of him whom thou mayst kill without a crime," says St. Ambrose., (de Tob. c. 15,) though this principle will not always excuse usury. This practice was always considered as unjustifiable, except when God gave permission to his people to get by this means the possession of the property of the stranger, the right to which he had already given to them; unless we may consider, that he only tolerates this practice towards the stranger, on account of the hard-heartedness of the Jews. Christ has now expressly declared it unlawful for any one. See Exodus xxii. 25. (Calmet)

BR

As in a share of the profits from the sale of the shoes which my money facilitated through the loan that bought the leather to make the shoes.

When I give, I give.

When I invest, I invest.

Don't confuse the two.

HGL

When you give, you give. When you grant a loan, you grant a loan. When you invest, you invest. Don't confuse the three.

If you agree that your repayment follows in value the fortunes of the company you lend to, both up and down, then it is ok.

That means: when the cobbler asks to get a loan of money you must agree if it is a straight loan or an investment. A straight loan means, you lend 100 pounds, you get 100 pounds back, neither more nor less. An investment means you get a specified share of the gains OR LOSSES of who you lend to.

Neither way can you agree on lending 100 and agreeing beforehand to get 106 back after a year. In a loan you get 100 back. In an investent you could get either more or less back.

BR

The loan is a means of investing Hans-Georg.

He has my money to use for a while.

Yes, losses are to be anticipated in investing.

Nothing wrong with 'a percentage of the profits not to exceed 6 percent of my capital investment, the remainder of the profits being retained by the one providing labor'

HGL

No, a loan and an investment are distinct. Confusing the two is the main sin of modern day Capitalism as such. Other sins have followed from it, which are worse, but only because Capitalists have other personal qualities than being that. Like Heresiarchs or Abortionists in some cases especially gruesome.

Nothing wrong with a percentage of either profits or losses not exceeding 6 percent in either direction.

BR

Permanent loan, non-interest bearing loan, interest bearing loan, They're all loans.

The trouble with trying to limit the losses is that it might put you in the position of taking the money needed for food from the one who lost the capital.

HGL

Interest bearing loan is a loan, but a morally illicit one. Unless the interest - according to Pope Leo X - only pays for all or half the expenses of keeping a municipal office of loans to poor independents. Or other poor. He preferred that taxation pay the other half. And the expenses must be modest.

Of course Luther - whom you claim to follow in Theology - did not agree with this exception.

"The trouble with trying to limit the losses is that it might put you in the position of taking the money needed for food from the one who lost the capital."

Having lending as your source of income is not a bright idea anyway. And when someone lost his money capital after a straight loan he was supposed to work until he had paid it off. The lenders having a right to supervise his working.

IN the guild system one so caught and being a guild member could count on helps from other guild members.

BR

An interest bearing loan for necessities is morally inexcusable. One for 'potential increased profits' is an limited return investment (the remainder of the profits being retained by the one providing labor)

I don't follow Luther very well....

HGL

A limited return investment is only such if the limit is not just on the upper end but also on the lower end and if one cannot ask 6 percent of one who has only gained 5. You don't follow Luther? Well, he maybe had some Christian qualities you don't have.

BR

I never suggested lending was a wise way to make a living.

I'd take the loss, and offer to help him get his act together.

No, you're confusing 'limited risk' with 'limited return'.

HGL

I am not. A return can only be proportional to the vicissitude of the one one is lending to and never exceeed it either up or downward. It can be limited so as not to go as far either way as 10 per cent if you agree on 6 per cent as upper and lower limit.

What you seem to be suggesting is someone telling beforehand "I don't know if you get to make five or ten percent out of the loan, I prefer being sure in advance, so we agree on 6 percent whatever your gains or losses" - that is Trinus Contractus basically and condemned by Pope Sixtus V.

The only thing that can stand "whatever your gains or losses" is either, basic idea, as much back as was lent, or, Pope Leo X - giving back so much more that the city can continue lending to the poor without paying all administration from taxes.

BR

The 'nor downward' part is where you're missing it.

Limited return doesn't of necessity mean non exposure to loss.

I'll try again.

I don't know what you'll gain in profits. I do know the work will be yours, and I'm only helping by providing capital, so if you make a profit, I want half of that profit up to 6 percent of my investment. After that, the profits are yours. If you make 5 %, I get 2.5% if you make 50% I get 6%. If you loose it all, well, I knew that was a possibility going in, but money setting in the vault does no one any good.

HGL

And in such a case you should be prepared to take 6% less if I loose 50% and 2.5% less if I am on the loosing side for 5%. As for money sitting in the vault, if it was yours and you are not keeping it for others who must have a right to see it there when getting for it, you had a perfect right to invest it in some other way, including but not limited to buying a guitar, learning to play it, and be a streetsinger from the moment the money you had is no longer available to you since spent.

Now, to return to the other cobbler case, not how he should pay a lender, but how he should have a right to sell his shoes.

Even now, assuming he has shoes marked NIKE and tries to sell them, and NIKE is contacted and he has not bought the NIKE shoes from NIKE, nor from anyone they sold to, they are assumed to be counterfeit.

Selling shoes without being a guild member in the towns that required cobblers to be guild members was dealt with about as one would today deal with such an act of counterfeit.

One might argue that it is good for everyone if shoemaking is rationalised, if fewer men work fewer hours PER BATCH OF SHOES and anyone buying from them or their master who pays their wages can buy the shoes cheaper. Anyone who is sure of his job or business will appreciate the advantage. Cobblers will still be employed as a necessity in mending shoes before poor people buy another pair but also as a luxury by people who think Gucci isn't fine enough. But there will still be fewer cobblers. There are lots of towns with one or two men mending shoes and no one in the town making and selling his shoes; so for cobblers the outcome has been less security of work.

But even cobblers out of work can be thankful if the wheat is cheaper since tractors and petroleum replace farmers and horses. And ... and in the end this logic ends up with everyone looking for a new job.

And some new jobs are distinctly less pleasant and less conducive for an easy way of making one's eternity than cobbling or farming, the sectors, where among so many others, jobs have been lost. While others, with or without working also, are using food stamps or homeless shelters (yes, working people do use them too, it is rare but occasionally possible for homeless to get an employer, one morning in Aix the first one into the shower might be a man arguing "I need to get to work in time and clean").

What if producing shoes like NIKE does had been illegal, or so?

"One of capitalism's most durable myths is that it has reduced human toil. This myth is typically defended by a comparison of the modern forty-hour week with its seventy- or eighty-hour counterpart in the nineteenth century. The implicit -- but rarely articulated -- assumption is that the eighty-hour standard has prevailed for centuries. The comparison conjures up the dreary life of medieval peasants, toiling steadily from dawn to dusk. We are asked to imagine the journeyman artisan in a cold, damp garret, rising even before the sun, laboring by candlelight late into the night.

These images are backward projections of modern work patterns. And they are false. Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all. The tempo of life was slow, even leisurely; the pace of work relaxed. Our ancestors may not have been rich, but they had an abundance of leisure. When capitalism raised their incomes, it also took away their time. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that working hours in the mid-nineteenth century constitute the most prodigious work effort in the entire history of humankind."

Pre-industrial workers had a shorter workweek than today's
from The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, by Juliet B. Schor
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/hours_workweek.html

BR

If he losses it, it is gone.

I have the right to lend it as an investment too.

HGL

Yes, I never disputed that.

I was and am only upholding a distinction between lending and investing. I am refusing a certain shilly-shallying between the two concepts, where it is "investing" as long as one gets more back, but "loan" in case one should risk to get less back. If you invest, you share your investment's either profits or losses. That is what investment means. If five percent gained by your investment mean you get five percent more than you lent, then five percent lost by your investment mean you get five percent less. If 5 percent is the limit and 50% gained by your investment mean 5 percent more for you, then 50% lost by your investment mean 5 percent less for you.

If you "lend half, invest half" so that you get half the profit as percentage, then 14% gained by your investment mean you get 7 % more, 14% lost by your investment mean you get 7% less.

Guess in which cases both lender and borrower had a common interest in prolonging loans, sometimes? The one does one payment less when he is otherwise loosing, the other gets another chance of turning losses to gains. But that is what investment means. Risk nothing while someone else is working, gain nothing.

BR

Fourth time Hans-Georg, I'm perfectly at liberty to loan (as investment) with a limited return and with no limit on risk, concurrently. That is one of the nice things about property, one can do with one's own as one pleases.

HGL

As long as the transaction is honest.

Or do you mean that if you have an upper limit on the gains you claim to share, you have no corresponding lower limit on the losses you are prepared to share?

In that case, of course, your contract would be not only honest but even generous to the borrower and is perfectly laudable (very much opposed to taking a fixed interest). I took you as meaning a total annulation of debt in case of insolvency, but no other alleviations of it (if losses occur) corresponding to the gains. In my mind that is not honest investing. It is wanting the gains of an investment without the risk taking of an investment.

If today I buy 100$ worth (present rather than nominal worth) of shares in Coca Cola and sell them in a year, if Coca Cola went up 10% I get 110$ and if it went down 10% I get 90$.

Same with a loan that is no pure loan but an investment.

Except of course, the investment loans include no dividents while not paid back and are redeemed by the borrower rather than by a stockmarket.

"That is one of the nice things about property, one can do with one's own as one pleases."

Holy Writ did not say an Israelite lending to another Israelite could charge the interest he liked, but that the loan was to be a straight loan without interest. Interest taking is either a Pagan or a pre-Pagan but impious (Nodians rather than Noah!) perversion of the sense of just investing. Israelites only were allowed to use it against Pagans, Canaaneans even and not less evil Pagans.

HGL (answering an earlier point)

JP - you said they had government charity in the Middle Ages, yes, but government and Church did not collaborate to make the poor dependent on exactly one system of pauper support, they were rather setting an example so that people who could but were not princes or priests should follow the example and also give to the poor. A very important distinction, I think, and one missed by some Distributists today.

HGL (dito)

PFH - the Medieval punishment for trying to sell shoes without being a guild member in a town requiring guild membership was not beheading but simply getting at best fined and at worst your things confiscated as any fraudulent business man. In the near century from Reformation to Charles I one could perhaps have been beheaded, like for being a Catholic, also for sympathising with the guild system.

PFH

Hans, what is your source? What your saying I have often heard from Randroids and never backed up. They just assume, "they must have had a crumby economy, because they were christian".

You realize to enforce such rubbish laws, you would need a standing army of sorts. Nobody had one pre-revolutionary france.

This business of selfishness.... that should be blamed on original sin more than any economic system.

HGL

In a medieval town a man trying to sell shoes without authorisation (i e where cobblers neededto be guild members and he was not) was fined, not because there was a standing army, but becayse there were twenty men with halberds, and two of them would suffice to deal with the guy.

If you call that a "standing army" there were lots of such previous to Revolutionary France.

My sources are entries in encyclopedias.

A law like that was not crumby. It ensured cobblers already established in the town had work. It was ensured by wine merchants and bartenders who similarily wanted to keep their business. It was ensured by bakers who wanted to keep theirs. It was ensured by tailors who wanted to keep theirs.

"how awful for those who need to buy on walmart!"

Well, those now needing to buy on walmart are people employed in big businesses that have rationalised production of shoes, of bread, of clothing, and of wine sail excepting the bartender part. Back in the days before industrialism, under the guilds, they would instead being employed in cheap production have been employed in somewhat more classy such and have been able to afford more classy consumption.

There is no evidence whatsoever people in towns were generally poorer than people in towns are these days, excepting of course the fact they lacked commodities not needed in smaller and slower towns but needed in modern NY.

Assuming they would have had coffee before the guild system was destroyed. The town hall would have had to decide:

• 1) can coffee be sold at all in town?
• 2) can it be served by the bartenders who are wine merchants?
• 3) can there be a new guild for serving coffee but not wine?

Once that was decided, nobody who wanted to drink coffee at home would have needed a coffee machine, since nobody would have been in such a hurry as these days. So, they would still have had no coffee machines. And obviously neither cars nor trams for getting from one end of the town to the other, when one could easily walk the distance in an hour or less. ONLY in lacks such as coffee machines and cars were they poorer back then.

JB

Hans, I think the distinction you are trying to make is between a productive loan (e.g., investment in a machine shop where if profits are turned the owner might agree to pay back the principle plus 10% of the profit for the year however if he went belly-up the principle would not have to be paid back) and an unproductive loan which a common day laborer might need to put food on the table for the week. It comes down to the purpose of the loan. Clearly anything above the principle for the loan to the day laborer would be usury. The same also goes for car loans, home loans, student loans, and most loans today as most of these loans are not for productive purposes but for things people use to get to work, live in when they are not at work, and educate themselves to hopefully find work. The car, home, or education produces nothing per se therefore asking anything over and above the principle is usury.

Truth be told I am still wrestling with the fact that an investment asking for more than the principle might be a clever way to conceal usury. After all, the person who invests say $100,000 into the machine shop that ends up turning a $1,000,000 profit for the year ends up with $200,000. Essentially his money just doubled itself without him lifting a finger. Now, one might say the owner of the machine shop is still happy with $800,000 profit and that he needed the $100,000 capital to be able to turn that profit however I still can't square it with Justice. It seems to me that the owner should simply pay back the principle. I suppose it might be justified if and only if the proviso was indeed added that if the business goes belly-up even the principle does not need to be paid back though to me it seems preferable to avoid these scenarios and just treat everything as a straight loan therefore the principle is always the only thing that is owed back and if our brother's business goes belly-up we should be willing to forgive the debt in charity. This seems to be in perfect harmony with the command of the God-Man when He said, "lend, hoping for nothing thereby." (Luke 6:35) To the canard which states, "if people were expected to lend hoping for no return on their investment than no one would lend," I would assert the commentary for Luke 6:35 as a reply: "Hoping for nothing, but merely impelled by a desire of doing good. They who only give when sure of having a greater return, do not give, but traffic with their generosity; in which there is no charity." (Rev. Fr. George Leo Haydock)

HGL

JB, your definition of productive loan is from Calvin.

It was not even accepted by the first generation of Calvinists.

As said, the moral of a productive loan with interest and the moral of contractus trinus (one contract for a loan that is an investment as I after St Thomas have defined it, one for a straight loan, one for swapping "10 % probable gain" + "0% whatever the gain" : 2 = "5% whatever the gain" - condemned by Pope Sixtus V).

It is pretty close also to the contract called "de la gruesa ventura" - a percentage of any gains, but losses leave the looser debt free. It was often applied to sailors, was condemned by one Pope and the condemnation led to some precursors of insurance policies. Later on it was however not applied, when that was the contract type famously signed between Isabela la Católica and Cristopher Columbus.

JB

I actually got that definition from Hilaire Belloc. I doubt he knowingly got it from Calvin considering his disdain for all things Protestant, especially the Judaic-Calvinistic notion that wealth is a sign of predestination and poverty a sign of reprobation. I follow you, agree with you, and in fact believe Belloc was simply mistaken on this. I am reading a book on usury right now that you yourself would appreciate and in fact every Catholic needs to read. Fr. O'Callaghan refutes all the arguments of the usury apologists with tact and clarity while citing all the ancient canons, papal decrees, and teachings of the Fathers:

[Not exact same link, but better link to same book:]

O'Callaghan, Jeremiah : Usury, funds, and banks : also forestalling traffick, and monopoly : likewise pew rent, and grave tax ; together with burking, and dissecting; as well as the Gallican liberties, are all repugnant to the divine and ecclesiastical laws, and destructive to civil society ; to which is prefixed a Narrative of the author's controversy with Bishop Coppinger, and of his sufferings for justice sake (1834
https://archive.org/stream/usuryfundsbanksa00ocaluoft#page/n3/mode/1up

HGL

But are you sure Belloc approved of it? As I recall him, he specifically attributes it to Calvin. I take that as he rejected it.

Of course, he made a point that usurers after Calvin did not fully apply the distinction.

Fisher More College Latin Mass and Sedevacantism

[Status of] Rick De Lano

To those who are insistent upon defending the grotesque affront to every Catholic who loves the Latin Mass which has just been perpetrated in Fort Worth, may I say that I will make it a Lenten penance to try and avoid simply writing you off as dupes.

To those who find themselves in any way at all moved, as if the slanders and rumors and gossip-mongering somehow justify the illegal and chilling suppression of the Mass, I ask you to consider this:

"Then, and most importantly, the whole coetus has to be heard - otherwise, this can be a cause for the suppression of a Mass at any time and in ANY place, including yours (yes, pay attention, including yours), if you go regularly to a Traditional Mass. That is, just one or a couple of individuals can cause the end of the Mass for any group - and I am sure you can see the grave danger in this, right? No group of Catholics must live under this kind of terror, the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads because there might be "bad apples" in the group, and always in fear of an immediate suppression of their Mass. What is the Church, a totalitarian state in which the faithful live under permanent terror of a true or false accusation that can bring the shutdown of their Mass at any moment for allegations against individual members of the whole coetus? Is it only the very minoritarian faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form who must live under this regime of liturgical terror? There is no Ordinary Form Mass shutdown for the many, many errors, heresies, schismatic notions, grave liturgical abuses being spread out openly in many regular parish churches, and university campuses and chapels? No, there are rightful procedures in Canon Law to identify apostates, schismatics, heretics, whatever may be the rite, form or use they adhere to, providing them with the right to be heard, to defend themselves and their views, and to repent. And, even if individuals are rightfully convicted, the innocent members of the coetus must be spared.

No, we cannot remain silent because we must breathe. We will not allow ourselves to be suffocated after Summorum Pontificum by dangerous precedents. Once sacred, always sacred, said Benedict - and always free."

Rorate Cæli : First Things First: It's not about specific persons, it's about the principle - and the grave precedent
http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2014/03/first-things-first-its-not-about.html

Hans-Georg Lundahl to status

As you may already know, my point about the bishop is he could have left the Latin Mass in peace whatever fish he had to fry with Mr King.

PLM

You stated it very well, Rick DeLano. The pseudo-trads around here are falling all over themselves accepting every the neo-con Taylor Marshall says and excusing the "bishop" when he indicates that the true Mass is a danger to the faith of Catholics.

Rick DeLano

It is demoralizing in the extreme to witness the degree to which the allegedly Catholic are ready to not merely accept, but actively and positively affirm the illegal suppression of the Traditional Mass, on grounds that it is somehow a danger to souls.

...

TJK

There seems to be more here than meets the eye. If King is a sedevacantist or close to it, and is influencing the college students and faculty in that direction, then that's a serious problem. Let us not too quickly scapegoat the bishop. I've had nothing but bad experiences with sedevacantists and those who are sympathetic to that fever swamp of spiritual and intellectual pride.

Although I don't quite understand why in disciplining Mr. King who according to Mr. Dr. Marshall's letter needed disciplining he refused to permit the celebration of the extraordinary form at the college. That does not seem to follow

PLM

I have come to realize that the entire Vatican establishment since 1958 is a farce and not the Catholic Church whatsoever.

JP

Sedevacantism is insanity. You are now holding propositions condemned by the Council of Constance (1414-1418): "if the pope is foreknown and evil, and consequently a member of the devil, he does not have the power over the faithful given to him by anyone, unless perchance by Caesar." and: "If the pope is wicked and especially if he is foreknown, then as Judas, the Apostle, he is from the devil… and he is not the head of the holy militant Church, since he is not a member of it." The thing is Porter, the objective criterion required by Catholic theology for recognizing who is a true pope is the recognition of the one elected by the Cardinals, Bishops and by the Whole Church. In your mind, it is impossible for such criterion to be objective, but will necessarily make appeal to a fundamentally subjective source, even if an effort is made to MAKE IT APPEAR as objective. And we know who can make things appear to be true. Sedevacantism is from hell.

Hans-Georg Lundahl to JP

There is a very clear difference between foreknown and evil (which latter at times was true of Alexander VI and which former may have been true of him - since then he has found out) and being open heretic or apostate (which was very much NOT the case with Alexander VI).

So, no, Sedevacantism is not the same thing as the propositions condemned by Council of Constance.

For instance, if Bergoglio is the Antichrist that does not automatically mean he is not Pope. But if Bergoglio is uncatholic in doctrine, that automatically means he is no Catholic and no Pope, even if he is not antichrist.

If Bergoglio is Antichrist he is foreknown, and is either already evil or will be so later. But if he is uncatholic, he is, after a Catholic Baptism, either slightly heterodox (in which case he is still Catholic and might be Pope) or directly heretical or apostatic, in which case he is not Catholic and not Pope. Only in a non-baptised person (as perhaps Kent Hovind, since his Baptist Baptism is probably not valid, lack of due intention, or similarily Jonathan Sarfati) would uncatholic doctrine be totally innocent. Of course, humble people among Lutherans and Anglicans could sometimes have the excuse of being badly instructed. Such an excuse is not conceivable for a man in the position of even a local bishop, or even an auxiliary bishop.

JP

Yes, Hans, even though the Apostolic Constitution Cum ex Apostolatus of Pope Paul IV declares invalid the election of a heretic to any ecclesiastical office, including the supreme pontificate. However, it cannot be used to prove the invalidity of the election of a heretic because that bull was merely disciplinary, and not doctrinal. Since that time, the Church has judged that it would be better for her to be validly governed by a heretic than to be invalidly governed by the same, with all of his acts void and giving no power. The law governing papal elections which was in force for the elections of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI was that of Pope Pius XII who legislated it on 8 December 1945 "None of the Cardinals may, by pretext or reason of any excommunication, suspension, or interdict whatsoever, or of any other ecclesiastical impediment, be excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff. We hereby suspend such censures solely for the purposes of the said election; at other times they are to remain in vigor." to participate in an election 'actively' means to vote in the election and to participate 'passively' means to be elected to the office, to be the 'passive' (acted upon) object of the election. Thus, no cardinal subjected to "any excommunication" was "excluded from the active and passive election of the Supreme Pontiff" and any of them could have become pope. I'll stick with Pius XII on this. Cheers

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It is Catholic Teaching per se that a Heretic who remains so cannot validly be elected or validly hold by himself any office.

If subordinate to Pope his acts might nevertheless be juridically valid if "supplet ecclesia" = supplent his superiors. Even while a notorious heretic was awaiting a not yet had condemnation for heresy.

What Cum Ex Apostolatus added to that was that if a man had ever been heretic before election, even if he had since returned to the Catholic faith, even then he could not be validly elected.

ONLY that is disciplinary about Cum Ex Apostolatus. ONLY that can be changed.

As for the words of Pius XII, I have debated them with David Bawden alias Pope Michael I, whichever of both he may be.*

He considered it impossible that Pius XII could have meant it that way, I considered it possible that Pius XII was himself already a heretic. Or at least not a very ardent defender of Catholic doctrine.

* "whichever of both he may be" can be considered as "salva debita reverentia" in case he should be the real Pope.

JP

"I considered it possible that Pius XII was himself already a heretic" And that's where we part company Hans.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are free to do so.

Do you condone NFP too?

Do you think evolutionist scenario can be reconciled with Adam's soul specially created, even if its timeline very much contradicts Marc 10:6, as has been pointed out since?

Hans-Georg Lundahl to TJK

Mr King need not be Sedevacantist. What bothered the bishop was basically his agreement with Iota Unum.

One can say John XXIII and Paul VI were Popes but Vatican II not a valid council if one restates that as they did not state the right intentions as to convening or confirming the council as such, but the wrong ones (pastoral council, not there to condemn errors = invalid, even if convened or confirmed by a real Pope thinking it valid). That is the position of Iota Unum and the core position of SSPX. It may be a position impossible to defend theolgically. It may be a position that does not account for "Papal" Quran kissing.* But it is not a position that no one has ever seriously attempted to hold.

You are a Pole. It was actually a countryman of yours, who owned the since defunct url wandea.pl who saved me from Palmarianism after I had been a Palmarian for 14 months. He quoted a Palmarian catechism saying Antichrist sees the world from the fourth dimension, the Blessed Virgin Mary (or Most Pure Virgin) from the eighth.

I left Palmar de Troya in 2002 since I hold with St Augustine that the world has three dimensions, to remind us of the Blessed Trinity, its Creator. I do not agree with saying it has more dimensions. So, I thank a Sedevcantist who is your countryman for telling me that.

* Or for "Papal" actions proclaiming a common responsibility of all to actively protect nature. Or a "Papal" way of being that reminds of a Nonconformist Minister exhorting his congregation to more and more fervour. Or a "Pope" more eager to rival brilliant writers than to judge their doctrine.

Addition - a link and my comment on one of its statements on Rorate Cæli:

aleteia.org : Something's "Fishy" in Texas
Brantly Millegan, 05.03.2014 //
Not just a simple “oppressive bishop vs. faithful traditionalist martyrs” story, there’s “more than meets the eye” in the Fisher More College controversy.
http://www.aleteia.org/en/religion/article/fisher-more-college-controversy-over-extraordinary-form-5812668111781888

Rorate Caeli, self-described as “the most-read international traditional Catholic blog on the Internet,” called the action “a grave injustice” and urged its readers to raise media pressure against the bishop’s decision.

As to "the most-read international traditional Catholic blog on the Internet", I am not sure if they can compare to all my blogs together, but perhaps to any one of them. Last time I checked total number of page views with blogger statistics, I was not far from 300.000. What is their sum?

And how well is their blog indexed?

My different ones have for one thing the distinction between them to make an article easier to find, but also on some greater ones either incomplete indexes or complete ones:

deretour I
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/de-retour.html

deretour II
http://hglundahlsblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/lannee-liturgique-2010church-year.html

deretour III FR
http://triv7quadriv.blogspot.com/2011/09/index-iii-fr-pour-deretour.html

Trivium 7 Quadrivium (all)
http://triv7quadriv.blogspot.com/p/index-indicum.html

First to New blog on the kid
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-i.html

Creation vs. Evolution : Index to English Crea-vs-Evolu-series
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2009/08/index-to-english-crea-vs-evolu-series.html

Creation vs. Evolution : Pour francophones tendance monoglottes, sur d'autres blogs
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2010/06/pour-francophones-tendance-monoglottes.html

And sometimes not to a blog per se, but to a subject:

En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones : Chronicle of Susan Pevensie
(fanfiction)
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2011/12/chronicle-of-susan-pevensie.html

En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones : Questiuncula de veritatibus in paganismo
(own reflections in Latin)
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/06/questiuncula-de-veritatibus-in.html

En lengua romance en Antimodernism y de mis caminaciones : Index in stephani tempier condempnationes
(the systematic version of Bishop Stephen Tempier's 219 condemned thesis, with my footnotes to clarify precisly what is being condemned and what the obverse obligatory truth is)
http://enfrancaissurantimodernism.blogspot.com/2012/01/index-in-stephani-tempier.html

But sometimes also such a series, if small enough, is not given a separate index post, but an index in the top of each message. Pretty often even. Example below, giving just one message of it, which contains links to all in top and to next in series in bottom./HGL

Staying with Father Murphy's God
[four parts, linking to part 1]
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/responding-to-miller-staying-with.html

PS: If you look up at the page button [click link -> ] Blogs / bloggar / bloggi ... [ <- click link!], you will see that I have also indexed the entire number of these blogs on blogger. Might just one of these days add those on wordpress and livejournal./HGL

Others on the question of heresy and heretical Popes:

6. The Catholic Church teaches that a heretic would cease to be pope, and that a heretic couldn’t be validly elected pope
http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/6_noheretic_pope.pdf

Newadvent site / Catholic Encyclopedia : Heresy
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm

Stop Christophobia! Support the Catholic Press! The Remnant is pro-family, pro-life, pro-Catholic across the board, which is why it is hated by the far-Left and has even been targeted by powerful Liberal lobby groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center. We need your help if there's to be a Catholic response to universal Christophobia that really matters. Please consider a tax-exempt donation of any size to The Remnant Foundation to help subsidize this website: [Donate button] We are outnumbered by the "big guys" in the Christophobic mainstream media but we feel confident that The Remnant is in a position to take a stand that matters to you, your family and your Church. For more information about how you can help us fight back, please visit the Remnant Newspaper Donation Page We're tired of the militant Catholic-bashing going on utterly unchecked everywhere today, and we think you are too. Please join us in the name of Christ the King, and let’s never surrender the Catholic cause. In Christo Rege, Michael Matt Editor, The Remnant

Where did I come across this appeal? When opening the following article:

Thursday, February 27, 2014
The Curious Case of Fr. Paul Nicholson
Written by Chris Jackson | Remnant Columnist
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/fetzen-fliegen/item/311-the-curious-case-of-fr-paul-nicholson

From which I quote the famous quote of Mgr Lefèbvre:

There is no question of us separating ourselves from Rome…nor of establishing a sort of parallel church as the Bishops of Palmar de Troya have done in Spain. They have even elected a pope, formed a college of cardinals... It is out of the question for us to do such things. Far from us be this miserable thought to separate ourselves from Rome!...

Far be it from me to set myself up as pope! I am simply a bishop of the Catholic Church who is continuing to transmit Catholic doctrine. I think, and this will certainly not be too far off, that you will be able to engrave on my tombstone these words of St. Paul: "Tradidi quod et accepi-I have transmitted to you what I have received," nothing else.

I think my blogs can have some support two, first item.

Second item, when I (for 14 months only) became a Palmarian, I of course knew of them through this rejecting word by Mgr Lefèbvre and a similar rejection by Fr Bryan Houghton. Third, my question is how long one can go on and say "the Pope is wrong on this one, even if he is not heretic and therefore even if he is Pope" without sooner or later concluding that perhaps he is after all a heretic, perhaps he is after all no Pope.

And of course, when it came to making decisions about subjecting or not to Conclavist Popes, first of whom was Michael I alias David Bawden, one was already biassed in some quarters due to rejection of Palmarian and similar Popes.

He admitted - Pope Michael or David Bawden, whichever he may be - that a private revelation could settle which of rival claimants was the real Pope, but unlike me at the time, since I was defending Palmar, he saw it as impossible that a line of Popes starting from St Peter could end and then a new one start by a Private Revelation. By - as claimed the first Palmarian Pope - St Peter and St Paul chosing someone in a Heavenly conclave.

So, no, he is not exactly the same thing as Palmarian Schismatic Popes.

But my use has up to now not been to clarify who is the real Pope, ma has been right, I have not been able to decide on the matter.

My use has rather been certain things which are and remain true independently of who is the Pope. See for instance my debate with the Catholic branch of the Darwin family:

Darwin Catholic : Monday, February 24, 2014
Did Augustine and Aquinas Believe In A Literal Interpretation of Genesis
http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2014/02/did-augustine-and-aquinas-believe-in.html

As per writing moment, I am last commentator on the post, but that may presently change./HGL

Fundamentalism Attacked as Pharisaism - by a Methodist Pharisee

1) HGL's F.B. writings : Fundamentalism Attacked as Pharisaism - by a Methodist Pharisee, 2) Bergoglio misuses "Fundamentalism" too ....

JAU status linking to ...

Mercy Not Sacrifice
The Blog of Morgan Guyton
namely
Why English majors make lousy fundamentalists
March 3, 2014
http://morganguyton.us/2014/03/03/why-english-majors-make-lousy-fundamentalists/

[My answer in detail to that blog post, under JAU's status, using the format to simulate a dialogue between Morgan Guyton and me, while in fact I am responding to his supporter JAU. Since he is a Catholic - if you call Modernists Catholics - I did not grasp the blog post he was linking to was Progressive Protestant, and I answered as if answering a Catholic.]

Morgan Guyton

1) Unsubtle communication is bad writing

The measure of how good a writer you are is the degree to which you are able to communicate with subtlety. If I know how a sentence is going to end before I’ve gotten there, then it’s a crappy, uncreative sentence. To be unsubtle and completely straightforward is to be a bad writer.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No.

The fire was red it flaming spread - it is as straightforward as you get. Tolkien is not a bad writer, despite fashions among English teachers.

Plus, if subtlety is what he wants, how about the first word barasheet referring to the Son (bar) of God (a=aleph) consuming [himself] (shin) with his hands (yod) on the Cross (tau)?

The real subtlety is not making a straightforward reading not work, but to make it work perfectly at a straightforward level - and to add something important. Which is on any reading (either Church Father or reading like that) what God has done with Genesis 1 and 2 if Christianity is true.

Morgan Guyton

What can we speculate about the community that Luke is writing for that differs from the community Matthew is writing for?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Since Luke is writing for Christians of Gentile origin, he leaves out Eloi, Eloi, Lema Sabachthani. Meaning that Sts Matthew and Marc wrote, or possibly the second listened to one writing and speaking to a community with some Jewish background.

Leaves precisely every fact of the Gospels as a fact and therefore leaves the fundamentalist totally fundamentalist (unless he is a Zionist who cannot take implications of that Psalm).

On same line St John who uses the words "he said to the Jews, 'woe ye, for... ' ... " where the other three say "he said, 'woe ye Pharisees and Sadducees, for ...' ..." - St John leaves out the specification of groups within the Jewry of Jesus' time, since he is writing when "Jew" had already resumed the groups hostile to our Lord in the popular meaning of the word. Or even juridical meaning, by some Sanhedrin decision.

Morgan Guyton

To make Genesis 1 literal isn’t just a problem for me because of its contradiction of modern science. It’s a problem because there are so many cool things that the firmament, the waters above, and waters below could stand for metaphorically if they don’t have to be literal scientific facts (take a look at what Augustine does with them in his books 11-13 of his Confessions).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There is a very cool thing you can do if it is scientific fact too. Is "water" always H2O, or did Moses call also H2 "water"? Is the Hydrogen in the stars that were created on day four from a kind of electrolysis separating Oxygen from Hydrogen on day two?

But really, the guy makes me fear the quality of English majors is very much deteriorating.

There are metaphors in the Bible that no Fundie ever misses. Goats and Sheep on Judgement day do not refer to literal cattle.

A writer whose metaphors are taken as metaphors and whose literal writing is taken as literal is a good writer. A writer whose metaphors are for millennia taken as literal plain sense when in reality not meant so at all is a bungler.

Now St Augustine was perhaps not personally a fan of literalist readings, but as we can see from De Genesi ad Litteram already book 1, already when talking of Heaven and of Firmament, he had to come to terms with them, they were part and unmissable such of the Christian tradition.

If ever a man having written a book for the Coming Home series writes about certain problems he had with the Catholic Church and if that man should ever be a Church Father (not probable there is enough time left for that to happen often) it is a basic rule of understanding the Church Fathers that his specific problems and provisory solutions to it with Catholic Faith are not the same thing as his settled opinion as a Catholic about what the topic really means.

John Henry Cardinal Newman was even told that his book about his conversion while converting was NOT being theologically corrected, because of the apologetic value of "oh, there is where he came from". So that book is not a good way to know what he finally thought about how much evidence there was early on for this or that doctrine.

And similarily with Confessiones. His solution in itself is probably not bad (I will have to read up on books 11 - 13), but the problem should not be generalised. For one thing it was a problem on his "Coming Home" journey and for another thing he would never have even had that problem if the Catholic Tradition available to him in that moment had made it clear beyond doubt that nothing need be taken literally, or very little.

Morgan Guyton

In the New Testament, there are three major controversies that become important analogies for me in Biblical interpretation: Jesus’ Sabbath healing, the circumcision of the Gentiles, and eating ceremonially unclean foods. For fundamentalist Bible readers, these controversies are isolated incidents that have no bearing on how the church should handle analogous problems today. But an English major like me is going to draw an analogy between how these three issues were handled by Jesus and Paul and how the church should handle issues today including today’s controversy of all controversies, which I’m sure I don’t have to name.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

All three controversies are controversies about LAW. The great difference between Fundies and us is BELIEF ABOUT FACT.

When it comes to controversies surrounding it, sometimes about Canon Law, I think it is more often the Anti-Fundie Brigade that takes the position of the Pharisees.

"Has your bishop authorised you to believe the first eleven chapters of Genesis literally?"

Well, no Pope or Council of the past ever required me to not believe them literally.

"Kent Hovind is a heretic, you are being syncretistic with heresy!"

And you with openly totally infidel Jews like Stephen Jay Gould in that case.

And a few more, but those are the chief accusations I have come across, the accusation of disobedience to the Church Teaching, and the accusation of collusion with heresy.

Oh, the accusation that is no moral one, but about the quality of my reading skills has btw been answered in more than one detail above.

Morgan Guyton

In reading the Bible, I instinctively look for elements that might be analogies.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

So do fundies. And Jesus' words when not dealing with halachot to be applied in the day, but with haggada, stories to be either believed or used just as stories, always took a side as if they were also to be believed.

Morgan Guyton

He was ready to murder his son Isaac, because a voice in his head that said it was God told him to do so.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It was in fact God who told him to not murder but sacrifice his son. It may come to this English major as news, those guys not being very literate about Christian literature from Church Fathers including St Augustine (except their favourite quote mining), but Theologians have indeed asked the question of how Abraham was justified before. Their conclusion is not, as would the Anti-Fundie-Brigade, that he weren't, but that he would not have been unless he had - quite correctly so - believed God was capable of resurrecting Isaac.

All of the story is a very good metaphor for what God did through Jesus Christ. But it was preserved by people not yet knowing that up to the time when Christ came, or rather not yet knowing it in perfect detail. It is still preserved by people who are not even Christians, the religious community which is called Slaves of the Church, but whose service consists in the one fact of believing the Prophecies while not yet believing the Fulfilments. Both these people to this day and the precursors of us rather than of them believed Abraham had actually done this. Literally. And they were not mistaken.

Morgan Guyton

"the fact that the Greek word for church, ekklesia, is the word used in the Septuagint for Hebrew religious gatherings and the word used in pagan society for public political assemblies doesn’t make its meaning reducible to “religious gathering” for me. When I see ekklesia, I see a compound noun combining ek (out) and klesia (calling). So ekklesia to me will always be about God’s calling us out of the world and into a new reality instead of being merely a “religious gathering,” because I see the word with a poet’s eyes."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There is a core meaning. PEOPLE. In Pagan society ekklesia ton Athenaion meant Athenian people in assembly. Among Hebrews ekklesia Israel meant Israelite people assembled. For instance when signing the convenant at Sinai. This is prime evidence against the Protestant view.

The fact that Church and Christendom are distinct go back to the distinction between Daniel and - in his better days - Nebuchadnessar. But not to the meaning of EKKLESIA as such.

Morgan Guyton

"I see the Old Testament quiver in a similar way when God strikes Uzzah dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant in 2 Samuel 6."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

No, OT does not rebel against its author. Uzzah deserved death. And people insulting the Blessed Virgin Mary - Ark of the New Covenant - is not better than Uzzah's act.

Morgan Guyton

"I happen to think that he’s a real trickster just like Jesus is when he refuses to answer any question in a straightforward way."

Hans-Georg Lundahl

He answers questions very straightforwardly when coming from Disciples. As to his answers to Pharisees, He was tricking the real tricksters.

Hans-Georg Lundahl looks further on blog and comes back

I mentioned having been accused of siding with heretics when it comes to Hovind.

Well, JAU, the writer you link to is a Methodist heretic. His bland obedience to his teachers when he was an English major is as bland as his obedience to his pastors in Bible College.

His previous blog post was "two commands that no Christian will obey" and the second one was Deuteronomy 5:11-12 and has to do with differences between OT justice and NT justice. Therefore also with OT punishments as being bloody in a corporeal way. But his first pick was Proverbs 31:6-7, and he states, quite correctly, that one can cite this for buying unfortunate men, including homeless such, a bottle of wine. What shocks me is his Puritan and very Un-Chestertonian conviction that obeying this implication would be a very Un-Christian thing.

He is part of a Puritan system endorsing Pharisaic hypocrisy when it comes to giving beggars money.

JAU

Well, I suppose I should give some response to fourteen posts. -- It seems to me that Methodists are among the most sensible of Protestant sects; and without common sense, theology is non-sense.

HGL

The good part of Methodism is that they are not Calvinists. As far as freewill is concerned. They are still sacramentarians and still lack Apostolic Succession. On top of that it is not just any Methodist but a Protestant one.

[I suppose one could call St Louis-Marie Grignon de Montfort or St Francis of Sales a "Catholic Methodist", but that is not what I meant. I meant this Methodist was a Modernist one and used "Methodists" as normally for a usually Protestant sect.]

JAU

Of course, they are sacramentarians -- their tradition came through Anglicanism. which has no Sacrament. So, without looking outside of their tradition, they were right as far as that. Does their take on how to understand scripture differ from that of the Early Church, or did they rediscover something essential?

HGL

The Early Church understood the Old Testament exactly as St Thomas Aquinas or Pope Leo XIII did - with a few more waverings into extremes of "letter alone" or "only spiritual sense" that have been eliminated. Or had been, until new towters of "only spiritual senses" were accusing the take of Popes Leo XIII and St Pius X, of Theologians like St Augustine (who was also a bishop) or of Sts Jerome and Thomas Aquinas (who were priests) of being identical to the "letter alone" take.

JAU

So, for you, Scripture cannot be read as other forms of literature are?

HGL

I suppose by "other forms of literature" you mean "other forms of story-telling literature". I also presume that by "other forms of story telling literature" you mean Tolkien or Dostoevski rather than Titus Livy or than Tacitus and Sueton, whose narratives are meant as a statement about continuous facts in chronological order.

Try another strawman + ad hominem, they are getting entertaining.

Appendix

TriThemia

where did my comments go ?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

There are three of them above mine, and one of JAU between first and second of them.

Oh, Tri Themia, did you want them included in my blogpost?

Earliest comments before I jumped in:

ES

I like this blog am going to save it.

TriThemia

I think Orwell made it clear why "english majors" stop thinking

JAU

Because they can't calculate 1984?

TriThemia

duckspeak is not english

duckspeak majors quack truth=fundamentalism

Own comment

I think I spotted a reference to Duck Dynasty, and I do not agree. Nor do I find it a rational argument for the things said in the blogpost by Morgan Guyton. Which discussion is what I extracted from the comments below that status of JAU. I posted them there to give JAu a chance to answer, as seen above I was right, he did.