tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post517121942375654318..comments2024-03-29T02:29:03.388-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: What was the Holy Roman Empire?Edward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-46851320955101700512023-09-23T23:07:03.429-07:002023-09-23T23:07:03.429-07:00The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, it was not Rom...The Holy Roman Empire was not holy, it was not Roman, and it was not an empire.<br /><br />I’m not sure why so many people link it with the Roman empire. You may as well link Russia because she was ruled by tsars (caesar), or Britain because her royalty has mythic roots in Arthurian soldiers left behind after the collapse of Rome…Simon Adamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08967831833822936845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-58755030318159879342021-02-14T13:41:45.649-08:002021-02-14T13:41:45.649-08:00"There could be no greater nightmare than a w..."There could be no greater nightmare than a world government of the kind they advocate."<br /><br />Under a world government of the kind we advocate, the sort of capitalistic careerist nonsense that's going on today would go out the window - not in favor of socialism, mind. But in favor of a vocationalism that views one's work as more connected to the good of one's family and community than as connected to personal wealth, power, or gratification. With less incentive to accumulate wealth (as one's sense of well being is no longer connected to financial success), income gaps would shrink. With dramatically decreased pressures towards competition, the workplace would become a saner, gentler place. This is the beginning of social justice, is it not?Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06297660669717051302noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-20338515237870225132021-02-01T09:40:01.159-08:002021-02-01T09:40:01.159-08:00Roman-vacantismRoman-vacantismWilliamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07344664631686490881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-54737552187632773552021-01-10T21:34:22.534-08:002021-01-10T21:34:22.534-08:00Professor Feser, do you think this Holy Emperor sh...Professor Feser, do you think this Holy Emperor should be a separate, lay, and subordinate position to the Papacy? Or should the Emperor simply be the Pope? I think the Fourth Lateran Council and the Papal Bull Unam Sanctam declared infallibly that the Pope had Supreme Temporal Authority. What are your thoughts on this?<br />Brilliance of the Rosaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01268142307617556243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-6602142999443933032020-12-30T04:37:42.429-08:002020-12-30T04:37:42.429-08:00This is a very fascinating OP. Indeed I thoroughl...This is a very fascinating OP. Indeed I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. It certainly provides an interesting contrast to Edward Gibbon's, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" more broadly.Papalintonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03818630173726146048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-19651863285717481572020-12-24T04:07:13.801-08:002020-12-24T04:07:13.801-08:00@Conflicted anonymous
As a Catholic convert livin...@Conflicted anonymous<br /><br />As a Catholic convert living in a Orthodox-majority country, I can certainly relate when it comes to scandal produced by some of the recent occupants of the Apostolic See. However, scandal simply cannot be taken to be evidence; in fact, one should be careful so as not to allow it to interfere with rational considerations, if a truly rational conclusion is the desideratum. And for a Christian this goes doubly so because, as we know from the Gospel, at least before the very end the scandal would be grave enough so as to threaten even the elect and make Our Lord ask rhetorical questions concerning the future of the Faith. <br /><br />As an antidote one should perhaps keep in mind scandals of a less immediately visible nature, like the current and abiding schism between Constantinople and Moscow over Ukraine. This does not impact the way cultus looks and works, granted, however, at this point it involves already involves at least two opposing ecclesiologies that are at least as irreconcilable with each other as they are with the Catholic one, and I think it is readily obvious that such scandal is much worse than poor artistic taste/trendiness.<br /><br />The other reason I bring this up has a lot to do with the point made by Talmid above: appreciation of and adherence to Eastern thought as such do not commit one to EO. Ultimately, the choice before you concerns the rationally recognisable authority to submit to. It also happens to be the authority that approves councils and elevates the Saints to the altar and their writings into the doctrinal canon. <br />Let’s be realistic (and Patristic): no matter how much you read every day (and I do not mean to discourage that), there will never come a day when you are knowledgeable enough so as to not need the visible Church for your doctrine, and not because of any defect on the part of your learning, but rather due to the nature of Christianity as a revealed religion.<br />As no contestant is free of scandal, the visibility in question is rational and supersensible, and concerns the grounds for an intelligible, binding claim to your submission on pain of damnation. The rationality of such a claim is surely a necessary condition for being the Church, if not a sufficient one. And I submit that if scandal warrants specific investigation, the scandal above has much more to it. <br /><br />P.S.<br /><br />If you have any specific questions, I’d be happy to contact you. I’m not an academic, but as someone who had to grapple with this very issue I may be of at least some help (academics seem to be reluctant to write conversion manuals anyway). I’m also Russian and somewhat familiar with the literature in the language.<br />Stranniknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-57019398996935703622020-12-21T01:31:16.494-08:002020-12-21T01:31:16.494-08:00Yes it's true of course, and when Catholic pow...Yes it's true of course, and when Catholic powers existed and were in a position to take over other countries there was debate as to its legitimacy. <br /><br />The culture of human sacrifice easily provided justification for the conquistadores in Mesoamerica. However, several proposals put to Phillip II and Phillip III for the conquest of China caused debate and were rejected. This was done on principle, not because there was anything to be lost by the attempts, as they were to be private expeditions mounted from America with Filipino, and potentially Japanese support. <br /><br />However, the protection of missionaries often justified the use of troops. Hatred and persecution of the Faith were also considered motives for intervention - Atahualpa's gesture of contempt for the Faith in Cajamarca cost him his freedom and ended the Inca empire. <br /><br />Any religious war involving invasion of the West would justifiably be followed by occupation of the offending country and a reordering of its society. It was done to Japan in 1945. Western liberals mostly believe it is legitimate to occupy a country to bring it their false ideology. They only question the feasibility of doing so. But you're right and in the absence of a major justification the common good with regards to supranational political organisation has to be understood and agreed upon by the countries which make it up. Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-41961757211794990552020-12-20T20:33:20.912-08:002020-12-20T20:33:20.912-08:00I think that the empire presuposes a christian wor...I think that the empire presuposes a christian world, similar to how the HRE existed in the christian europe from back them. A society with a dferent view of the last things would likely not see the empire as having real authority. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28183278339809368162020-12-20T11:39:15.193-08:002020-12-20T11:39:15.193-08:00The common good may not always be agreed upon but ...<i>The common good may not always be agreed upon but is surely a mostly objective consideration. So your final comment about non-Catholics being oppressed is not necessarily such a cut and dried matter, in itself. </i> <br /><br />Well, I was actually thinking about the Christians being oppressed by secular humanists, as occurs now. <br /><br />I intentionally left as a separate question whether one state <i>ought</i> to be ruled by another power, because it is, for example, degenerate and its notion of "the good" is so degenerate that it cannot properly even rule itself. Aside from such considerations, if two societies have <i>opposing</i> views of what constitutes "the good", then one view ruling the other society will necessarily be FELT as oppression, and the governing will then not be <b>at peace</b>. Even if the ruling order is the one with the right view of the good, and rules well for that good, it will not be a peaceful governing. So, de facto there will be a defective system even if de jure the supra-government is ordered to the right ends. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13540231672135676252020-12-20T11:34:01.350-08:002020-12-20T11:34:01.350-08:00Johannes, I don't know enough about the inter-...Johannes, I don't know enough about the inter-relationship between Buddhism and Hinduism; I have always they were fundamentally at odds because Buddhism doesn't have personal gods, and Hindu does. But maybe in Hindu there is no god who is ultimate and grounds "the good" as such? <br /><br />In any case, I suspect that Christians and Buddhists could get along under a single supra-government for nearly all purposes, since their view of "the good" bears significant points of similarity. Don't know how far to take that. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-90878018475372016722020-12-20T08:04:23.216-08:002020-12-20T08:04:23.216-08:00Maybe there is actually strong diferences between ...Maybe there is actually strong diferences between the two churches and i don't know, but i don't see it at all, you don't have to be 100% thomist to be a catholic, just ignore trads and you are good to go, really. The Catholic Church did accept some Eastern churches since the Schism and they still have a lot of freedom to mantain their traditional way. I know that orthodox usually see Eastern Catholicism as a bunch of latinized fools, but i don't see much actual argument to that conclusion.<br /><br />I don't know about your sources, but everytime i see someone defending imcompatibility they aways make a false dichotomy between more "trad" versions of Thomism and Palamism, and this does not work. Not only the RC view is in no way "thomism or nothing" but some actually defend that the Hesychasm Controversy was mostly a misunderstanding caused by the diferent language used by the two sides. I'am very interested in Palamism myself, since i tend to agree with some criticism of Aquinas Absolute Divine Simplicity. <br /><br />That leaves us with the papacy, and i doubt that the orthodox can do much better that protestants in that subject, people like Scott Hahn did produce very interesting defenses of the catholic ecclesiology that uses a lot of Scripture, so you could check that out if interested. <br /><br />And don't hurry, man. You don't have a timer to do this, try to listen to the two sides at their strongest and, most important, try to listen to Him in prayer and in the rest of life, for He is the Way, the Truth and Life, after all. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29941552339349731042020-12-20T04:33:13.236-08:002020-12-20T04:33:13.236-08:00Another way in which Dante tended to prefigure the...Another way in which Dante tended to prefigure the ideologues of the ancien regime and divinise the state was the the way in which his proposed monarch mimicked Papal jurisdiction. The Pope's authority is received immediately from God and is necessarily universal, but no temporal ruler can assume such a thing.<br /><br />This is because the civil order is just that: civil, not sacred. Its arrangements are the will of society itself. The divinisation of society and the state that came with the Renaissance found later expression, with ideologues like Richier and others, who created the foundations of the ancien regime. Their state was directly modeled on the Papacy. Such divinisation of the civil order eventually reached its logical conclusion in 1789.Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-78139542324200815982020-12-20T02:06:52.307-08:002020-12-20T02:06:52.307-08:00Tony, your post raises a couple of important point...Tony, your post raises a couple of important points. Firstly, the idea of universal leadership usually considered countries which were already Christian and therefore corresponded more to what a proper civil order should be. The common good may not always be agreed upon but is surely a mostly objective consideration. So your final comment about non-Catholics being oppressed is not necessarily such a cut and dried matter, in itself. <br /><br /><br />Your other point about whether the state's common good itself is ultimate and the need for limitation based on a higher order, is warranted, because Dante's model is severely flawed. He was fond of analogies and they all point to the oneness of God, that man is in his image, that the relation of humanity to the emperor should be analogous to its relation to God, etc. But the analogies are distorted because they only concern a philosopher's God. Society should be analogous to the Trinitarian God of revelation. <br /><br />A properly functioning Christian society should not only reflect the principle of unity. Through its social orders, which are analogous to the variety that is the Trinity, it becomes a society of men made in the image of God (as Donoso Cortes liked to point out). At least that is the way Christian society viewed itself until the absolutism of the ancien regime. <br /><br />There is nothing in Dante's ideology preventing the state making an end of itself (apart from pious hopes that the ruler, being the "best", will do what's right). Other comments on this page mention the same thing: what would stop this supranational figure from becoming a tyrant? The answer to absolute sovereignty from the top is "social sovereignty" rising from the natural orders of society, (as opposed to artificial ones like parties and the market) highly structured at all levels (and not mere families - Bodin liked families, but there was nothing between them and state sovereignty in his absolutist theory which is now our society). <br /><br />Catholic political universality would merely reproduce subsidiarity at an international level. In this way, both the HRE and the worldwide Monarchy of the Baroque period had this characteristic of generally respecting local diversity, customs and political institutions. In Dante's theory there is no mechanism for this, and he looked forward towards the French ancien regime revolution. <br /><br />Dante never mentions the French monarchist anti-papal pamphleteers of the early 14th century from whom he derived most of his arguments. However they were not interested in a universal monarchy, only something which would eventually emerge as the absolutist state of the ancien regime in the 17th century. Dante's theory is interesting in that it already contains the ideological flaws that lay behind that state. <br /><br />Miguel Cervantesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2064611183149316252020-12-19T22:48:03.200-08:002020-12-19T22:48:03.200-08:00Hi there, I'm sorry your post was lost, and I ...Hi there, I'm sorry your post was lost, and I appreciate you reformulating such a kind response for me. I had the same view as you did before I took a serious look at Eastern thought, and since then, my reading has taken up two or three hours of every day. I love the idea of fitting theologoumena into the Church and I'm no anti-ecumenist but EO critiques are stronger and more riveting than I ever thought they would be. I'm going to give myself until the end of the year to make a decision. Thanks for all of your care. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-11494277403928208982020-12-19T20:56:27.822-08:002020-12-19T20:56:27.822-08:00*but like Our Saviour human nature she had to grow...*but like Our Saviour human nature she had to grow and(unlike Him) still do<br /><br />That part sounded weird...Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-1340555837653136142020-12-19T20:53:03.361-08:002020-12-19T20:53:03.361-08:00And also a bit of advice: relax, man. You sounds a...And also a bit of advice: relax, man. You sounds anxious to me, and that is not good. I know that emotions can't be turned-off and i don't know anything about you, but don't focus on this that much. No matter what side is right you still have to remember that the faith does not depend on Feser or Ybarra, but on Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His Church, this is where you have to put your trust, for only Him will never fail. <br /><br />Everybody has this moments of uncertainty, even saints, just remember that He is with you and will guide you to Himself. Maybe you can't refute some claims, that is okay for you are human, but don't let this destroy you. Pray, study, listen to the smart catholics, love and trust in Our Lord. <br /><br />I hope and also will pray that your heart be filled with the peace than Our Lord gave to us. Take care of yourself and don't give up!<br /><br />Also, from what i understand:<br /><br /> If you become orthodox and EO is right, them you did good.<br /><br /> If you become orthodox and RC is right them you probably followed a kinda valid path, even if not the ideal Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12607755566472395882020-12-19T20:34:11.125-08:002020-12-19T20:34:11.125-08:00@Anon
(I had a bigger post but i lost it, maybe it...@Anon<br />(I had a bigger post but i lost it, maybe it sucked too much :), who knows)<br /><br />It seems to me, and i say that admiting that i dont' know much, that RC and EO are not as separate as you make it sound. More traditional-minded people on both sides make the Schim look like a war, but this seems just how this kinda of people see anything, so who cares. I agree with the normal catholic view nowdays: RC and EO have mostly complementary, not antagonic, views. Their approachs are both interesting and i don't see any as necessarily better, just diferent.<br /><br />This in theology, their ecclesiology is sure diferent because of one thing: the pope. Now, what makes me think that Rome got that one right is that the pope is just the sucessor of St. Peter, and i don't see where the "first amoung equals" is on the Gospels. Serious, to me it seems that Our Lord never saw Peter as just one apostle, to me it is clear that he had a higher mission between them all.<br /><br />So that is where i think it ends: Scripture. I'am no protestant, but in this case i think that Rome view wins out. Historical arguments have their importance, but we can't look at things like protestants and secularists do: "Well, this view was not the settled view in apostolic times, therefore it is a fake and gay latter development". The Church was not born mature, and i suppose that orthodox would not negate this, but like Our Saviour human nature she is growing since back them. Looking at the Gospels while looking at the two sides, i think that the papacy does comes from above. Talmidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04267925670235640337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-14982622395692313582020-12-19T19:38:03.405-08:002020-12-19T19:38:03.405-08:00That's funny, because all of libertarian polit...That's funny, because all of libertarian political philosophy can be accurately summarized as, "Do whatever you want, I don't care."tridentinenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-69822927770827133092020-12-19T19:01:48.554-08:002020-12-19T19:01:48.554-08:00Perhaps another contender should be added as a mai...Perhaps another contender should be added as a main contender:<br /><br />The Buddhist-Hindu system - the good is beyond this temporal and conditioned material world and beyond what is of the senses. The good, under this system, is to be liberated from the conditioned to reach the Unconditioned.<br /><br />:)<br /><br />Cheers!<br />johannes y k hui <br /><br /><br />reasonablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14971948580051107601noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21741189450688781422020-12-19T15:23:55.848-08:002020-12-19T15:23:55.848-08:00Hi there, thanks for your reply. I am living and w...Hi there, thanks for your reply. I am living and working in America, yes, but that could change. In any case, from my sample of a few dozen Orthodox churches, I've found them nothing but warm and accepting. I don't know if your message is that of encouragement to become EO or caution against it, but I appreciate your kindness all the same! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-15054084942834001342020-12-19T15:13:58.472-08:002020-12-19T15:13:58.472-08:00I appreciate your words of support-- they mean a l...I appreciate your words of support-- they mean a lot to me, especially since this is a lonely place to be. Unfortunately, Ybarra's systematic deconstruction by apologists like Ubi Petrus was the most influential part of my rational side's conversion towards Orthodoxy. I just don't know of any Catholic scholars who have put enough time and thought into their differences with the East-- and that applies both to Orthodox and Uniates. People like Ybarra and Likoudis are both underprepared and unfairly isolated in their area of work. It seems to me like the Achilles heel of Catholic apologia, and I can't in good conscience ignore it. <br /><br />I'm deeply attracted to and confident in the Latin tradition of philosophy-- it's going to be personally and professionally difficult for me to "turn my back on it," so to speak (even though there is *tremendous* underexplored room for common ground alongside the Cappadocians, Palamas, Lossky). However, I'm not psychologically bound to my faith tradition to the same degree that I sense in many others, including Christians of every flavor. <br /><br />I need to find more reading, or I need some of these modern day RC geniuses (of which there are, luckily, many) to take a serious stab at this. Feser has very few blind spots, but Eastern thought is chief among them. Otherwise, at this rate, I'm going to have to publicly come out of the closet soon, and eventually join a new family. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-5112079159972810812020-12-19T12:10:56.815-08:002020-12-19T12:10:56.815-08:00I agree with OneBrow's response regarding 7 + ...I agree with OneBrow's response regarding 7 + 5 = 12.<br />GoneFishingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-60542105339375971712020-12-19T09:21:16.589-08:002020-12-19T09:21:16.589-08:00ficino4ml,
@ GoneFishing: what do you think of Kan...ficino4ml,<br /><i>@ GoneFishing: what do you think of Kant's contention that "7 + 5 = 12" is a synthetic and not an analytic proposition?</i><br /><br />Kant, not being a mathematician and having died before Peano ever lived, was wrong. It may have seemed synthetic to Kant with the level of knowledge he could access at the time, but 12 being the fifth successor of 7 is a definition of 12.One Browhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11938816242512563561noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-70049563985955801792020-12-19T09:17:45.455-08:002020-12-19T09:17:45.455-08:00It appears to me that the above argument for a sup...It appears to me that the above argument for a supra-governmental authority (above that of states) rests on a premise that may be true in some cases but not all. <br /><br />In all cases in which you have a community and thus a need for a communal director (i.e. a governing, organizing mind/person), the very premise of the "community" is that there is something that is a "common good", something that the many desire and intend. This is assumed by all Aristotelian - Thomist approaches, but it applies generally. <br /><br />The definition of "the common good" for a STATE usually bears a lot of overlap between the different states, but is also (typically) not going to be defined ENTIRELY in the same way by different cultures and different societies, there will be differences. Now, in general, an overarching supra-government can work within the overlap areas to direct the nations <i>in common</i> to what they all agree is at least WITHIN the common good. <br /><br />Mostly. But there are some foundational sine-qua-non elements of how the common good for a state is defined / determined that <b>cannot</b> be relegated to merely "well, that's the part that we don't agree on so the supra-government just won't go into that matter". The first such issue is whether the <b>state's common good itself</b> is ultimate, or whether there is something else beyond the state to which men may (or must) direct themselves. If the political, temporal order (taking into account the community of nations and the supra-government) is "all there is" and constitutes the highest end of man, that sets the stage for one kind of governing. But if there is an end for man that transcends the supra-polity of nations, and transcends the temporal order, to which man must direct himself as to his final end, then that sets the stage for <i>quite a different kind of governing</i> in the temporal order. It would imply that the supra-governmental authority (e.g. the emperor) must LIMIT himself and his governing according to a higher-order good, and he must accept constraints on how far to regulate men. (This principle also applies at the state level, too.) If the temporal "the common good" is "the good" for man only in a qualified sense, not an absolute sense, then the temporal government must allow men to organize themselves toward their final end distinctly from "the government", and must make room for that. "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, but give to God what is God's." <br /><br />And the crux of the matter is this: if one society on Earth is constituted mostly of those who deny such an end outside that of the temporal order (and have formulated their state government accordingly), and another society on Earth is constituted mostly of those who accept such an end as transcends the temporal order, then <b><i>there cannot be a peaceful supra-government ruling both such societies.</i></b> Their understanding of “the good” which stands as the principle which regulates that supra-government cannot be held IN COMMON, and thus any such attempt at a supra-government will necessarily seem to one of the societies to oppose their good, and can “rule” only in the way a conquering emperium does, by the iron fist. <br /><br />Currently the world has three main contenders for the nature of man and what constitutes his “the good” in finality. One is driven by secular humanism and insists that the good is ultimately temporal (even if they define it as a temporal utopia). One is driven by Islam and insists that man is a slave and “the good” is mainly that of the senses. The third is Christian and claims that man will be friends with God in heaven. These are <i>fundamentally</i> opposed views of “the good” for man. Hence any supra-government that rules over all of them must either give up on any common understanding of the common good, and/or rule by an iron fist over some of us. The former undermines the very meaning of a true government, and the latter represents oppression. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74238782562193639072020-12-19T06:14:33.269-08:002020-12-19T06:14:33.269-08:00@ GoneFishing: what do you think of Kant's con...@ GoneFishing: what do you think of Kant's contention that "7 + 5 = 12" is a synthetic and not an analytic proposition?<br /><br />And I gather that you would think Odergard, whom I quoted above, was just wrong.<br /><br />Thanks for the feedback.ficino4mlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00805116221735364590noreply@blogger.com