Faith, Reason, and Irrationality

As we have often noted on this blog, we like it when Faithful Readers send in comments or questions we can answer and use as the raw material for a posting . . . especially when the FR does most of the work him- or herself.  Today’s question-and-answer is from a Reader who is both Faithful and faithful (although not in our faith), whom we shall call “Rocky.”  And what was her (or his, as the case may be) comment or question . . . or a bit of both?  As Rocky (and maybe even Bullwinkle) said,

An Introduction to Reason and Logic

We’ve repeated this so many times on this blog that most of our readers should have this memorized by now, but we’ll do it again anyway, if only for old times’ sake.  The “first principle of reason” can be stated in two ways, one positive and one negative.  The positive statement of the first principle of reason is called the law or principle of identity.  It can be stated, “That which is true is as true, and is true in the same way, as everything else that is true.”

Faith AND Reason

As we saw in our last exciting episode, you can’t really understand or critique a system unless you understand the principles of the system.   Despite that, many people today declare that they can change the fundamental principles of natural law within an Aristotelian system from reason-based, to faith-based.

Karl Marx, the Great Reductionist

A short time ago we got a request to comment on Karl Marx as “the second economic reductionist.”  In the context of the discussion this referred to the socialist movement which, to make a very long story short and oversimplify greatly, began in the early nineteenth century with Henri de Saint-Simon’s declaration in his posthumous book, Le Nouveau Christianisme (1825) that what would in a few years be known as “socialism” was “the New Christianity.”

Interfaith Catholic Action? Why Not?

In a recent article, His Auxiliary Excellency Bishop Robert Barron opined (how do you like that word?) that if the laity want something done — such as protecting religious statues — they should stop asking the bishops to do something, and start thinking about doing it themselves.  That’s something of an oversimplification of a rather more involved argument, but that’s the message most people took from it . . . and they were not pleased.

The REAL Story of the First Social Encyclical

In the previous posting on this subject, we looked at how a social encyclical should be read.  That, however, was not the point we set out to make, but an introduction to the main point.  We just wanted to be sure that our faithful readers understood that when we talk about a “social encyclical,” they know what we are talking about: a document on a natural law teaching that, while it may be expressed in religious terms, applies to the whole of society, not just Catholics.

The Decline and Fall of Reason

For the last couple of postings, “More on Fulton Sheen” and “Fulton Sheen and the Idea of Ideas,” we’ve been looking into the bruhaha (ha, ha, ha!) over the announced delay in the “beatification” of the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Faith or Reason?

A while back we got into a rather pointless argument — with a lawyer, no less — about whether the natural law is discerned by faith, or by reason.  Despite what you might think, it was the lawyer who argued for a faith-based understanding of natural law!  (And he was supposed to be an expert on constitutional law, too, oy weh.)

Esoteric Posting for Election Day

Just to take a break from our short series on solidarism (and because nobody is going to be reading blogs today, anyway), we’re posting our response to a question we got last week on a rather “esoteric” subject: the basis of the natural law.

Do We Need the Rich?, I: Be Reasonable

Socialists and capitalists both claim that “the rich are different” — to which the proper Just Third Way response is (with apologies to Papa), “Yes.  They have more money.”  Or, actually, they have more access to money and credit for the proper purposes.

Conclusion to Three Keys to Common Sense: Where Do We Go From Here?

In Return to Chesterton (1952), the “follow-up” to her biography of G.K. Chesterton, Maisie Ward commented of her subject, “The hardest thing to live with as the years passed must have been the vision growing daily clearer of ultimate failure.” (Maisie Ward, Return to Chesterton.  New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952, 281.)  Evelyn Waugh wrote of Msgr. Ronald Knox’s approaching end, “At first glimpse death appeared neither as an awful summons to judgment nor as a recall from exile, but as the final disruption and frustration of plans.”  (Waugh, Ronald Knox, op. cit., 330.)  Throughout his autobiography, Treasure in Clay, Fulton Sheen made references to his sufferings.

The American Chesterton, XVII: Sheen v. Radical Catholicism

As we saw in the previous posting in this series, what was being taught in the theology department at the Catholic University of America in the 1920s under the auspices of Msgr. John A. Ryan was substandard.  While it cannot be proved, it fits the facts that Bishop Shahan, the rector of Catholic U., brought Fulton Sheen in to counter Ryan and improve the quality of the theology and philosophy taught there.

The American Chesterton, XVI: What is Truth?

As we saw in the previous posting in this series, the real issue for our day (and for the past several centuries, if you believe people like Mortimer Adler and G.K. Chesterton) boils down to the question that Pontius Pilate asked Jesus: “What is truth?”

The American Chesterton, XV: The Outline of Sanity

In the previous posting in this series we examined the problems Fulton Sheen addressed with God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy.  These were the new concept of God and religion, and the triumph of the will over the intellect, that is, the rejection of reason.

The American Chesterton, XIV: Problems and Framework for a Solution

As we saw in the previous posting in this series, the two problems Fulton Sheen addressed in God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy were, one, a new concept of God and religion, and, two, the rejection of the intellect.  Not that either of these two issues is peculiar to the modern age.  As far as the capacity for error goes (especially in religion), the human race has seen very little that is new under the sun.  As Sheen noted,

The American Chesterton, XIII: God and Intelligence

Fulton J. Sheen opened his first book, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy, with the declaration, “Modern philosophy has seen the birth of a new notion of God.”  The new notion is easily expressed.  As Sheen put it, “It brings man into greater prominence.  It exalts him even to the extent of giving him a ‘vote in the cosmic councils of the world.’  It is, in a word, the ‘transfer of the seat of authority from God to man.’”  (Sheen, God and Intelligence, op. cit., 17-18.)  As Sheen went on to explain,

The American Chesterton, XII: Sheen at St. Edmund’s College

Fulton Sheen’s association with Msgr. Ronald Knox at St. Edmund’s College, Ware (with apologies to the Edmundians, vide Waugh, Ronald Knox, op. cit., 172), could only have strengthened Sheen’s commitment to reason and Aristotelian-Thomism.  It would also have confirmed him in his opposition to all forms of socialism.

The American Chesterton, XI: The Disciple of Common Sense

Fulton Sheen’s autobiography, Treasure in Clay, published soon after his death in 1979, has the advantage to the author of telling readers what the author wanted them to know about what he had done to set an example, and entertained with a series of edifying anecdotes.  It also has the disadvantage of telling readers very little of what, perhaps, they wanted to know about Sheen himself  — something Maisie Ward pointed out the American Chesterton’s autobiography shared with that of the English Sheen, G.K. Chesterton.

The American Chesterton, X: The Hypothetical Fact

In his 1926 riposte to the New Age, Other Eyes Than Ours, Msgr. Ronald Knox has a character declaim in a speech, “The creeds and dogmas which rested their weight on the evidence of alleged facts have become old-fashioned; we have become familiarized with the idea that a historical statement may be false in the sense that the thing did not happen, yet true in the sense that it harmonizes with all that is highest in our spiritual nature.”  (Ronald Knox, Other Eyes Than Ours. London: Methuen and Co., 1926, 201.)  This individual — Mister Scoop — goes on, declaring,

The American Chesterton, IX: “Not Because It Is True”

In 2001 on the death of Mortimer Adler, the noted “Great Books Philosopher” at the age of 98, columnist Paul Greenberg presented his analysis of why (in his opinion) Adler had lapsed into semi-obscurity.  As he said,