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Tag Archives: thomism
God Shadowed By Emptiness: Thomas Aquinas vs. The Buddhist Nagarjuna
Emptiness shadows theism. With regard to Thomas Aquinas’ method for grounding existence in being as opposed to change or emptiness (as the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna did), what I find interesting is how, despite himself, emptiness nevertheless shadows Aquinas’ theism. What … Continue reading
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Tagged alan watts, aquinas, Buddhism, Christianity, Nagarjuna, philosophy, thomism
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Form v. Change: Gay Marriage, Thomism, Capitalism, and Evolution
I’ve had a modest insight: the dividing line that I’ve been trying to articulate between Thomists and myself surrounding gay marriage can actually be pretty succinctly stated: Thomists take clues from the nature of form to guide them in how … Continue reading
Behavior Drives The Evolution Of Form: One Reason Thomistic Natural Law Theorizing Is Dubious
With regard to natural law theorizing (what constitutes rational or natural behavior for an individual), contemporary Thomists are not, in my view, taking proper account of the fact that, in the higher species of animals, form does not drive the … Continue reading
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Tagged gay marriage, natural law, philosophy, thomism, women's equality
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Gay Marriage: Should Empathy Or Thomistic Intellect Be The Deciding Factor For Heterosexual Opinion?
With regard to gay and lesbian marriage, maybe empathy is not the way to go. Maybe Aquinas-style intellect separated from empathy is correct. Aquinas, after all, was quite tough on Jews without apparent pangs of conscience. He called them “Christ-killers” … Continue reading
God Is Maximally Existent; Existence is Good; Therefore God Is Maximally Good?
A bait-and-switch I notice among Thomist theologians and philosophers: they’ll say that existence is good; and God is the most existent Being; therefore God is maximally good. He has the greatest degree of “ontological Goodness.” (Imagine the sweetest and largest … Continue reading
Does The Holocaust Render Natural Law Problematic?
Think about the Holocaust in relation to natural law. Even if the Holocaust doesn’t give you pause in relation to God’s existence, it nevertheless functions as an impasse to comprehension. What was God up to in letting the Holocaust happen? … Continue reading
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Tagged God, Holocaust, natural law, philosophy, religion, thomism
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The New Pope’s Liberalism vs. Thomas Aquinas’s Leninism
Thomas Aquinas was the Leninist of his day; he was a Party man. For Aquinas, nothing should be done without reference to The Party. All focus should be on The Party. The Party is the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy … Continue reading
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Tagged atheist, ecology, entropy, God, hedgehogs, lenin, philosophy, thomism
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Arguing about Gay Marriage with Thomists: Love vs. Reproduction
The premises underlying Thomistic arguments against gay marriage are four: sex’s goal should be directed ultimately to reproduction; marriage is for the rearing of children and the union of man and woman; marriage is naturally a social institution for promoting … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Catholicism, gay equality, gay marriage, God, Jesus, love, thomism, women's rights
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What’s a Penis, and What’s It for? Thomas Aquinas vs. Ludwig Wittgenstein
What’s better: to see a thing as having both essential and accidental features, and placing it in a genus-species hierarchy (Thomas Aquinas’ view), or to drop hierarchy and essentialism in definition altogether, and just see a thing as sharing “family … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, atheist, Nietzsche, philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, thomism, Wittgenstein
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What Love Is (A Definition)
What is love? I’d basically put it among the very broad family of “the better angels of our nature,” and in the genus of “seeking connection, harmony, and cooperation in a non-zero sum way.” As to the species of this … Continue reading
Thomistic Essentialism and Sex in the Real World
Virtually every healthy human adult on the planet has a sex life of some sort, and the effect of Thomistic sexual ideology (use sex organs for procreation only), were it to be seriously followed everywhere, would be the generation of … Continue reading
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Tagged Catholicism, gay marriage, philosophy, religion, sex, thomism, women's equality
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Sex, Thomistic Essentialism, and the Demographic Maintenance of the Catholic Church
With regard to sex, Thomism is a question-begging exercise that puts a veneer of essentialist metaphysics over the question, “Why is God upset if humans don’t make use of their sex organs in accord with their primary and essential function?” … Continue reading
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Tagged Catholicism, demographics, gay marriage, philosophy, sex, thomism
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Love, Thomism, Jews, and Gay Marriage
Love is what you bring into your circle of concern. You value it for your own happiness and the happiness of the other. It’s what you’ve found a way to work with rather than wall yourself off from, marginalize, and … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, gay marriage, gays, God, homosexuality, love, philosophy, Thomas Aquinas, thomism
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What are Sex Organs For? Thomism vs. Evolution
We know that evolution high-jacks organs all the time to different purposes depending on context. The first tongue may have had the singular purpose of tasting, then it got used by the cat for cleaning the pelt, then by humans … Continue reading
What’s Really Essential About Us? Do Thomists Get This Right?
If we’re heterosexual, God, nature, and evolution have conspired heavy against us in terms of what our essential function is from the age of 13 forward, which is to procreate. But we don’t conform to this aspect of our essential … Continue reading
Could Gay Marriage Drive A Revolution In Thomistic Thought?
At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser quotes Michael Levin as saying: “What homosexual rights activists really want [from anti-discrimination laws] is not [merely] access to jobs but legitimation of their homosexuality.” This is a distraction. The motive of activists … Continue reading
Sexual Prohibitions Require Justification
At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser recently wrote the following: “Sexual desire is extremely powerful and the demands of sexual morality an especially irksome imposition on the will. Hence the tendency of liberalism is to try as far as … Continue reading
Gay Marriage and Thomism
At Catholic philosopher Edward Feser’s blog, a poster in the threads wrote the following: “If I start with a conclusion, then perhaps I can manufacture a theory (or modify an existing theory) to arrive at my desired conclusion, but that … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Catholicism, edward feser, gay marriage, God, philosophy, thomism
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Two Arguments Against Thomism
I think of metaphysics as akin to poetry. If you can’t ground arguments in empiricism and experience, you can’t really say with certainty whether what you’re claiming is in fact true or merely clever. So my first argument against metaphysical … Continue reading
Technology Bad for Thomists?
Should Thomists shun technology? At his blog, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser wrestles with the question of whether technology–playing with Promethean fire–is a good thing, and I think it’s telling that, by the end of his essay, his question shifts away from the … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, edward feser, God, modernism, philosophy, psychology, religion, thomism
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Prometheus Unbound 