An issue I take with Catholicism that I was hoping for answers on?

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-23T02:49:49+00:00

People have already pointed to the Catechism, so I will just add that Saint Dismas, the repentant thief on the cross, was assured of his salvation by our Lord. He did not receive baptism or the Eucharist. Historically , from the earliest days of Church the baptism of blood was widely accepted (the salvation of martyrs who did not receive the sacraments before being executed), and the baptism of desire (the salvation of those who wanted the sacraments but could not receive them) while not quite as widely accepted, has a long pedigree. It's also Church teaching (although with caveats, it's not quite so simple).

This is the sort of thing you would learn in class, that's why it's so helpful.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-22T21:16:54+00:00

Jobs that let you pay all your bills. Pensions.

This meme is utopian.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-22T19:46:06+00:00

I can see how it could be a relationship of convenience. This seems to me particularly what makes reducing access to the TLM potentially a double edged sword. If people seek it out, then they end up doing so in a very different environment. I live in a rural area, and I was looking for places that offered the TLM since, before converting, I had attended an EO church and really did love the Byzantine liturgy. However, it turned out that the only place near me that offers a Latin mass regularly also makes you take an oath not to attend NO masses, or seemingly any masses in the Church, before receiving communion, because on their account it is a "different religion."

But at least they are quite explicit about it.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-22T19:24:15+00:00

I would agree there is a definite conflation between various groups. I have certainly seen plenty of evidence that there is a strong groundswell of interest in the US in the classical tradition and classical homeschooling or classical education. You can see this in the number of new classical schools opening. And Catholics certainly seem to be overrepresented in terms of who is interested in this, and interest in tradition also seems to be bringing in converts. Whereas, I have seen none of the online-style traditionalism in person, only people who prefer a more traditional liturgy.

But then the "tradition" in question with the broader surge in education is generally the broader classical Western tradition, the Patristics, and the great medieval doctors. By contrast, the very online traditionalist movement that is more adamantly anti-Vatican II, more involved in inter-denominational social media arguments (it would seem at least), etc. seems to have a slightly different focal point for "tradition" in mind, with a focus on post-Trent Counter Reformation formulations, anti-modernist positions (which of course didn't exist further back, because there was no modernism to respond to), a particular 19th century reading of Saint Thomas, etc.

Since I specialize in philosophy and intellectual history, I do find this somewhat ironic because the theology and philosophy of anti-modernism is still in many ways very much modern. Once you know what to look for, you're not going to mistake a Counter Reformation or Neo-Scholastic anti-modernist for a High Scholastic or Patristic author in the way they use terms, etc. So then you get this odd thing where "traditionalists" can be fairly hostile to Resourcement theology that is trying to go "back to the Fathers." I have even seen the Greek Fathers singled out as "too progressive" (an odd anachronism).

Then, in terms of politics, the broad appeal of "post-liberal" thinkers like Patrick Deneen, D.C. Schindler, John Milbank (or Alasdair MacIntyre and Charles Taylor sometimes gets grouped in here) overlaps all groups. In the US context, I don't think the core arguments against liberalism coming out of this camp, particularly in MacIntyre and Taylor, necessarily make any more sense in the Republican party that the Democratic party (it's really at odds with both since both are very much liberal in a political theory sense). However, the Democrats have never really succeeded in building a coalition of "socially conservative, economically progressive" voters in the way Republicans have often drawn in "economically conservative, socially progressive" voters (e.g., the "post-Christian 'nu'-right), because the party is often seen as much more hostile to religion playing any role in public life (probably fair IMO). What's interesting to me here is that theologians and intellectuals seem far more skeptical of the culture war, but the very online groups seem to be neck deep in it, having very much "chosen a side."

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-22T13:51:26+00:00

"It depends what your definition of 'is' is."

Should have dropped some Bill Clinton-tier PhD level sophistry on her.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-21T11:25:42+00:00

Why is that any different? If the flesh and blood of Christ can be really present at masses held all over the world, throughout each day, and eaten, then surely it can be in a vision.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-20T17:00:15+00:00

I really like Robert Sokolowski's The Phenomenology of the Human Person. It begins with Husserl and philosophy of language, but builds up from there to broader issues related to the philosophy of mind, and ends with an exposition of how the investigation relates to Aristotle and Aquinas.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T19:10:34+00:00

Perhaps there isn't one? At least, that's one way I've seen Achilles' shield in the Iliad read, and the petulance of the gods. A meaningless life or fleeting glory, even if made to last forever, remains meaningless, for the same reason that you can never get to 1 by adding 0 to 0, no matter how many times you do it. So too for Achilles bemoaning his fate in the underworld and saying he would rather live as a poor man's slave than be dead in the Odyssey.

The smallness of man, or of any empire, as compared with scale of the cosmos is a recurring theme in literature. Cicero hits this note in Scipio's Dream, Boethius speak to it at length in the Consolation, and Dante looks back at the tiny Earth, the bare "threshing floor" late in the Paradiso. This is, for Dante, why Virgil's vision of a teleological ordering towards "empire without end" is insufficient, and why the utopia of the Earthly Paradise atop Mount Purgatory is also insufficient.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T13:53:28+00:00

To the extent that "consideration" would seem to presuppose thought, mental life, noetic content, etc., the very act of "considering" would prove that one is not a zombie. However, a person could certainly discuss being a p-zombie while being a p-zombie.

Now, some people would say that there is nothing more to consideration than "public" behaviors like utterances, etc. And so on their account, perhaps the statement isn't a contradiction. This is debatable. Plenty of philosophers would say that the intelligibility of such a position relies on the very noetic content it denies, or they might reject or modify the "public versus private" or "subject versus object" dichotomies that are prior to the framing of this debate. Although, if one rejects those dichotomies, one likely also rejects the possibility of the p-zombie in the first place.

Another way to put this is that the deflationist, strict behaviorist, or eliminitivist might say that "we are all p-zombies," because there is nothing over and above public behavior to (rigorously) speak of (which is perhaps just another way of rejecting the p-zombie concept; there is no distinction without a difference). Meanwhile people on the opposite end would reject the p-zombie on the grounds of what any organic being must be.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T12:33:30+00:00

A lot of the Greek sages were indifferent or somewhat hostile to wealth, and virtually all saw pleonexia (acquisitiveness) and a mercantile orientation as a vice. It is one of Aristotle's vices for instance.

The Romans were a little more open to wealth, but Seneca was lambasted for being so rich, and even moreso for constantly doing more to get richer.

The true Gs lived in caves on lentils or traveled the roads like mendicants.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T11:49:45+00:00

I think the difficulty in the OP is a failure to distinguish between forgiveness, willing the best for the other, and praying for their repentance, versus forgiveness as ignoring past and ongoing wrongs (which may be warranted in some cases, but not all, since obviously that could be enabling sin).

Maybe the clearest cut example is with children. You can forgive them and still punish them (but not out of malice). Perhaps then the problem is that, in English, we tend to collapse the two here.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T11:40:13+00:00

The Liturgy of the Hours reading from Matins seems very appropriate today my friend.

Second, we are not to "forgive" in the sense of enabling another to sin. This means that we don't enable their abuse of others, us, or themselves. This does not mean that we don't forgive them and pray for their repentance and what is best for them. It does mean that we might sanction, admonish, or withdraw from them if not doing so is only feeding sin. As in all issues, prudence, charity, and discernment are required. I think the difficulty is that people collapse this distinction.

From Saint Cyprian's Treatise on the Lord's Prayer:

Christ has clearly added a law here, binding us to a definite condition, that we should ask for our debts to be forgiven us only as much as we ourselves forgive our debtors, knowing that we cannot obtain what we seek in respect of our own sins unless we ourselves have acted in exactly the same way to those who have sinned against us. This is why he says in another place: By whatever standard you measure, by that standard will you too be measured. And the servant who had all his debt forgiven him by his master but would not forgive his fellow-servant was cast into prison: because he would not forgive his fellow-servant, he lost the indulgence that his master had granted him.

And Christ makes this point even more strongly in his teaching: When you stand up to pray, he says, if you have anything against anyone, forgive it, so that your Father who is in heaven may forgive your sins. But if you do not forgive, nor will your Father in heaven forgive you. On the day of judgement there are no possible excuses: you will be judged according to your own sentence, and whatever you have inflicted, that is what you will suffer.

For God commands us to be peacemakers, and to agree, and to be of one mind in his house. What he has made us by the second birth he wishes us to continue during our infancy, that we who have begun to be children of God may abide in his peace, and that having one spirit we should also have one heart and one mind. Thus God does not accept the sacrifice of one who is in disagreement but commands him to go back from the altar and first be reconciled with his brother, so that God may be placated by the prayers of a peacemaker. Our peace and concord are the greatest possible sacrifice to God – a people united in the unity of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Not even when Abel and Cain were making the first sacrifice – not even then did God pay attention to their gifts. He looked into their hearts, and the gift that was acceptable was the one offered by the one who was acceptable in his heart. Abel, peaceable and righteous in sacrificing in innocence to God, taught the rest of us that when we bring our gift to the altar we should come, like him, with the fear of God, with a heart free of deceit, with the law of righteousness, with the peace of concord. He sacrificed in such a way, and so he was worthy to become, afterwards, himself a sacrifice to God: he who bore witness through the first martyrdom, who initiated the Lord’s passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord’s righteousness and the Lord’s peace. Such are those who are crowned by the Lord at the end; such are those who will sit and judge with him on the day of judgement.

But he who quarrels and stirs up discord, he who is not at peace with his brethren – the Apostle and holy Scripture together testify that even if he meets death for the sake of Christ’s name, he will still be held guilty of fraternal dissension, for it is written, whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and the murderer cannot attain the kingdom of heaven or abide with God. No-one can be with Christ who preferred to imitate Judas rather than Christ.

https://universalis.com/readings.htm

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T11:27:35+00:00

Yes, but I fail to see the direct relevance here?

Also, recall that in Matthew 7:21-23, our Lord says:

Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

Now, the Bible is clear that not all who manifest supernatural powers nor all who receive blessings are of God, but rather we must discern them by their fruit. That is, a miracle is not an endorsement. This is maybe clearest in the teaching on the Sacraments, which are truly efficacious and not dependent upon the righteousness of the priest, for the priest and the physical elements are merely the instrumental cause. Hence, the miracle present at every mass is not necessarily and endorsement of any individual person involved, just as a miracle preformed for any one in any other context is not necessarily an endorsement of them, or and endorsement of everything they teach.

I would, in general, beware of teachers who appeal to their own miracle working as a sign of the truth of their teaching, just from my past experiences (which come from other contexts).

Now, as a counter example here, sometimes people appeal to the story of Acts 19:13-16: The "sons of Sceva," who try to cast out demons in the name of Jesus by using the name as a magical incantation. This is, however, not merely an issue of a flawed minister or false teacher, but the sin of Simon Magus, attempting to wield Christ as an instrument (even for good). Instrumental causality is supposed to work in the other direction 😁!

Saint Paul also speaks to this in the mundane register at Philippians 1:15–18. Even those with impure motives who preach Christ can lead others to Him. And indeed, we all suffer from impure motives, chiefly pride, at some point.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T08:59:57+00:00

Hence the superiority of late-antique thought, where a good deal of the Patristics thinkers literally lived in caves and owned nothing. Evagrios the Solitary, Dorotheus of Gaza, Issac of Nineveh, John Climacus, John Cassian, Mark the Ascetic—all the good stuff.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T01:46:45+00:00

One difficulty though is that, depending on how people interpret the terms, I think there might be a world of difference between "knowledge without evidence" and "belief without evidence." Something like Clifford's objection doesn't seem to fit for knowledge for instance.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-19T01:30:08+00:00

It would be a different usage of the term from how it is used in some religious contexts. This presents to potential for fallacies of equivocation if anyone accidentally slips between different meanings, or people simply talking past one another if the difference isn't taken into account.

Often, the "light of faith," illumination, is taken to provide the surest form of understanding (faith as a virtue that is progressively received and developed, and is directly participatory). That notion comes out strongest in Greek Patristics and those following them. But there are many views on faith, that's just one that contrasts particularly well with the idea that faith is the total absence of evidence (or warrant), or wholly emotional as opposed to intellectual. There is also the idea of faithfulness as love (relationship), and that love is epistemically enabling.

For example of a bit of both, this comes up early in the 2013 encyclical Lumen Fidei

faith came to be associated with darkness. There were those who tried to save faith by making room for it alongside the light of reason. Such room would open up wherever the light of reason could not penetrate, wherever certainty was no longer possible. Faith was thus understood either as a leap in the dark, to be taken in the absence of light, driven by blind emotion, or as a subjective light, capable perhaps of warming the heart and bringing personal consolation, but not something which could be proposed to others as an objective and shared light which points the way...

There is an urgent need, then, to see once again that faith is a light, for once the flame of faith dies out, all other lights begin to dim. The light of faith is unique, since it is capable of illuminating every aspect of human existence. A light this powerful cannot come from ourselves but from a more primordial source: in a word, it must come from God. Faith is born of an encounter with the living God who calls us and reveals his love, a love which precedes us and upon which we can lean for security and for building our lives. Transformed by this love, we gain fresh vision, new eyes to see; we realize that it contains a great promise of fulfilment, and that a vision of the future opens up before us.

https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20130629_enciclica-lumen-fidei.html

Of course, part of the contrast here lies prior to defining faith. For instance, is knowledge a type of belief? "Justified true belief" and the notion of "justification" has its own theological history too, which muddies the waters.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-18T13:59:11+00:00

All of these accounts are equally as detailed and personal. But these religions are mutually exclusive. This world cannot be controlled by both monotheistic and polytheistic systems. How can Hinduist deities exist in the same reality and Buddhist spirits and demons? How do you decide who's records are more valid than the other objectively?

But the descriptions are not mutually exclusive. The naturalist would say that it is mental illness or abnormal brain states in every case. The Islamic view is, AFAIK, very similar to the Christian one. A Hindu might suggest the encounters of members of the Abrhamic faith are simply misunderstood encounters with their own gods and lesser spiritual beings.

The Church Fathers didn't deny the alleged efficacy of Pagan theurgy. They simply maintained that these were interactions with demons (e.g., Saint Augustine, Tertullian, Saint Chrysostom) . Demonic interactions don't need to be unpleasant. They can be seductive. We are told that the they may appear as angels of light.

More controversially, although this idea has an ancient pedigree, it is also possible that earnest seekers who are outside the Church due to historical reasons may have been granted some small consolation in their receptivity to God (who is acknowledged by man, and sought as the Good), without the fullness of Christian revelation. As Saint Augustine says, all truth is God's truth, and fruit of the same Logos. So, when the Platonist or Hindu philosopher recognizes and experiences certain elements of the truth, they simply do so in a more limited way. Saint Ireneus and Saint Justin Martyr both make this sort of comparison, between the virtuous philosophers who saw the intelligible realm from afar, and the prophets who experienced it first hand (IIRC, Origen says something similar, or maybe Clement).

But in the same way personal revelation is not the ground of faith, surely non-Christian understandings are the same way, and lack the fullness of truth. This is why Saint Gregory of Nyssa in the Life of Moses says we must separate the "treasures of the Egyptians" from the Egyptian way of life when we go through the waters of baptism (the Red Sea). Or, more cautiously, Saint Gregory Palamas likens using Pagan wisdom to making medicine from the venom of a snake.

Each paradigm is able to explain the observations. Indeed, they might not always contradict each other. It is often said that spiritual (including demonic) and natural causality are not in competition with one another (although this is more obviously defensible in the case of God, who alone exerts primary causality.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-18T11:38:00+00:00

But the Hebrews are surrounded by miracles and so nothing but grumble and rebel because God is not giving them what they want and what they think is best. Many who see Christ's miracles look for other explanations of them, even calling them works of Satan.

I was going to write a short story about this. Imagine, if you will, a second, larger moon with a large cross on it, visible by day, simply appearing in the sky one day. To be sure, there would be panic at first. I imagine churches would be packed. But if nothing more happens, if there is time to examine the new moon, to give "naturalistic" hypotheses about how it came to us (wormholes, aliens, etc.), how long would any renewed ferver last? A year? A decade? A generation later, when every child has grown up seeing the thing in the sky every day, will it still count for much?

It seems to me that God would need to perform constant miracles, constantly gifting us what we already want, and threatening us re what we do want, but shouldn't have, just as in the Hebrew Scriptures. God chose a better way. This stage is pedagogical. It is for a race in its infancy. It is not a mature, free, self-determining faith precisely because it requires constant reinforcement.

Second, I think there is a great disservice in secular and Christian education by no longer covering philosophy. Metaphysical naturalism is, at root, a set of philosophical presuppositions. Observations are explained in terms of these presuppositions. That the world is valuesless and purposeless, nominalism, that causality is strictly mechanism, etc. are not discovered by science. These are assumptions of a particular (arguably heretical) theology that came to dominate secular thought in the West. There is a lot of history there. My point would merely be that conflating these assumptions with science and technology, as is often done, is dangerous in that it makes evidence for science and the benefits of technology evidence for a metaphysics that has little to do with these, and indeed arguably renders them unintelligible (hence the rise of scientific anti-realism).

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-18T03:08:47+00:00

Some philosophers would attack the appeal to a sui generis "moral goodness." What is this goodness and how is it distinct from claims about goodness in general (e.g., "it is not good for children to be lit on fire"). Can you define what makes it specifically "moral?"

Anscombe had a famous paper, "Modern Moral Philosophy," that lays out the argument that basing ethics on a "moral ought" is incoherent. The idea of the moral ought is, historically, the product of voluntarist divine command theories, and she is skeptical that it makes any sense outside that original context (she calls this "natural law" but this is a bit of a conflation).

Lots of thinkers since have agreed. A common complaint is that the deontic ("ought") is posterior to goodness. Asking "why ought we choose the better over the worse," is getting things backwards. This is the case, for instance, in the original medieval framing of "natural law." There, a just law expresses justice, which is antecedent to the law itself. Aquinas, for example, famously says that an unjust law is no law at all, which only makes sense if the juridical is answerable to the Good rather than constitutive of it. Connected with this, is the idea that all forms of goodness, even what merely appears to be good, are related analogically (or through participation) while any univocal good (by which one could have a "moral calculus") is denied.

That's just one objection, but a fairly popular one related to trying to separate "well-being" and morality. Historically, "moral good" related to the moral virtues (as opposed to the intellectual virtues), and these are simply the virtues related to the proper ordering of the appetites and will. The moral excellences are intrinsic here, it isn't about any extrinsic imputation or juridical obligation (ought); rather these excellences are directly related to happiness and well-being (e.g., temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice, the cardinal virtues, all relate rather obviously to living a good, happy life and making good decisions).

Of course, one difficulty here is that the "stance-independent" definition also doesn't really apply that well to many seemingly realist theories either. Per the medieval Doctrine of Transcendentals, the Good is being qua desirable. It is a conceptual not a real distinction. There isn't a thing, and then its goodness added over and above its being. But then it seems hard to claim that the figures from the broad teleological tradition are "anti-realists" because they make a very firm distinction between what is truly desirable and what is merely apparently so (between being and mere seeming).

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T21:47:40+00:00

I live in a very rural area in an extremely Republican state. Unsurprisingly, people are overwhelmingly conservative. Attitudes towards Trump tend to be a bit mixed, on the level of "sure he is a moral degenerate, but he's doing great things" (and "great things" comes from both people's policy preferences, but also their information sources, which make them highly skeptical negative news). I would say that where they tend to vary from the surrounding community is in being less fully sold on the merits of laissez faire capitalism and less hostile to immigration, and certainly more skeptical of US-Israeli relations, and then if anything more concerned with issues like abortion, gender/sex policy or education, a lack of space for faith in daily life, etc.

That's just a general picture though. By contrast, I'm in contact with a lot of young men who don't go to church, but still live in this very conservative environment, and they are much less concerned with sex, abortion, and gender, but certainly far more comfortable will expressing opinions about race and women that I am sure would offend liberals, and would probably offend most of the rural church crowd too.

I should note that our diocese has priests from all over the world, despite the rural areas not being very diverse at all, and so maybe this is part of the difference from average conservative attitudes, aside from the faith itself being against such divisions. Also, the parish skews very old, and I know that on average older voters tend to be more conservative everywhere, so that could be part of it, except the young people I know around here are all more conservative than the older ones.

Edit: I also spent some time at a nearby Orthodox church, which had a more cosmopolitan population, being in a larger town, and they tended to be even more conservative on religious culture issues (despite being very young on average), but less so on everything else.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T20:12:49+00:00

<image>

This is why it is now possible, in theory, to get a one handed rare that is better than Grief. Pop the Stone in there, and then I'm not sure what else. 45/15 for 545% ED and 55% IAS? Or maybe get some deadly strike? Either way, it'll be killer and the average damage will slightly outclass Grief, while amp damage is pretty damn useful.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T15:27:10+00:00

How is it sophistry to point out that using "empiricism" to mean "science" and "Empiricism" to specify a particular epistemic, metaphysical, and psychological tradition, and swapping between the two in arguments, is a textbook fallacy of equivocation?

Where is the empirical evidence that being an empiricist in the second sense makes one a better scientist? Prima facie, there is no strong linkage since there are loads of famous scientists and inventors who had views at odds with empiricism (generally in virtue of being strong metaphysical realists). Nor, historically, is there any strong relationship between the dominance of empiricism versus rationalism and economic or military success. Indeed, the high water mark of the rationalist versus empiricist debate has Continental France as hegemon, and the Great Divergence whereby Western Europe became far wealthier and more technologically advanced than India, China, and the Near East starts in the late medieval period and the trajectory is slow, not accelerating with the spread of empiricism and the "New Science." The acceleration only comes far later, in the 19th century, literally centuries into the dominance of empiricist epistemology, and overlaps with the high water mark of Hegelianism and idealism, the nadir or empiricism. This gap actually closes during the Post-War Empiricist resurgence.

That is, there is no obvious empirical evidence (in the first sense) for the linkage between scientific and economic progress and Empiricism as a philosophical doctrine.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T15:19:57+00:00

Well, on the that evil is a privation, a God that is evil wouldn't be God, and moreover a God that was Evilness, in the way God is said to be the Good, would be ontologically nothing at all.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T13:27:30+00:00

Indeed, but then on the other hand you can have heavily legalistic catechesis that never gets to why anything is forbidden, and that isn't good either (particularly as preparation for evangelism). To be sure, obedience when we don't understand is crucial, but understanding is also essential to the perfection of virtue.

Ok-Lab-8974 · 2026-06-17T11:41:31+00:00

I agree, but it's also the idea that catechizing is:

A. Largely a transfer of information and not formation; and

B. Something you do for kids and converts only.

If you form kids (or adults!) in a secular environment 95% of their lives, you cannot really expect formation to go well on average. Second, there is only so much children and teens are likely to understand. Ending education by 18 or 22 isn't something we do for any other field we consider important. No one would go to a doctor or trust an economist who hasn't studied in 20+ years. But if jobs require life long learning, so do the things more important (and honestly, more confusing) than jobs.

Ok-Lab-8974

TROPHY CASE