tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post5669436205926660900..comments2024-03-28T10:15:27.193-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: The latest on Catholicism and capital punishmentEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25986433422755370302018-01-26T06:35:56.563-08:002018-01-26T06:35:56.563-08:00And I might add that while there is nothing inhere...<i>And I might add that while there is nothing inherently unjust in the notion of a Catholic state, it would be unjust to cover the entire world in such states, leaving no place for people of no religion or a different religion.</i> <br /><br />Interesting theory. Follow it through: (1) if it is just for a state which is almost universally Catholic to be a confessional Catholic state; and (2) if it is good and worthy that as nearly as may be possible, EVERY person may hear the Gospel and become a Catholic; (3) it would not be right to withhold baptizing some persons or peoples into the Church if they freely want to become Catholic; and so (4) it is possible that in every country, nearly everyone could justly be Catholic; then (5) there is a possible condition in which every state in the world would justly be a confessional Catholic state. <br /><br />This condition would be <i>exactly</i> what the early, middle, late medieval popes, and so on up through Pope Leo (and Pius XI), would say is the ideal state of the world, and everything else is a defect from that condition. <br /><br />What VII demands, (and which is consistent with Leo XII), is that in such a condition, including confessional states, even people who are non-Catholic retain the freedom to act on their religious beliefs <b>except to the extent</b> that doing so is injurious to public order. <br /><br />VII also explicitly retains the older teaching that God has granted to Christianity (and to the Catholic Church) such substantiation and evidences of its validity as are beneficial to an open, seeking mind and heart. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-86876250896968344392018-01-26T06:09:37.298-08:002018-01-26T06:09:37.298-08:00Georgy,
So you grant that 1) heresy can legitimat...Georgy,<br /><br /><i>So you grant that 1) heresy can legitimately be criminalised; 2) it can be punished by severe penalties. <br /><br />It would appear that you have already resolved the immediate issue: why would you need to cite the option of exile, if you contest the general permissibility of death sentences for heresy?</i><br /><br />Personally, I think the idea of a society in which one's right to own property, vote and perform various other public functions depended on one's affirming adherence to an ideology (Catholic or otherwise) is a pretty daft one, but I can't think of any argument that would show such a society to be inherently unjust. In such a society, a public rejection of the prevailing orthodoxy would entail that one is no longer a member - in which case, one would have to leave. In so doing, one would presumably forfeit one's property, as well.<br /><br />It would not follow, however, that one would thereby forfeit one's right to live. The reason is simple: the society into which a person is born doesn't own that person. Consequently, it has no right to dispose of that person, simply because they are deemed unfit to be a member of that society.<br /><br />It is different when a person commits an act which places them beyond the pale in <i>any</i> society, such as a mass murder. Such a person then has no place on God's good earth, and may be legitimately executed as an enemy of mankind.<br /><br />Tony,<br /><br /><i>So, it's OK for us to have him subject his evil on OTHER peoples? And, what if all other states are already Catholic?</i><br /><br />The "other peoples" whom you mention might be perfectly happy to have the heretic.<br /><br />And I might add that while there is nothing inherently unjust in the notion of a Catholic state, it <i>would</i> be unjust to cover the <i>entire world</i> in such states, leaving no place for people of no religion or a different religion. That would be like a bunch of billionaires buying up all the property around your house, and then charging a $1,000,000 toll fee for you to pass through their property.<br />Vincent Torleyhttp://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/index.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-28984937971391791392018-01-26T04:08:46.372-08:002018-01-26T04:08:46.372-08:00A Catholic subject of his would have to refuse to ...<i>A Catholic subject of his would have to refuse to offer sacrifice to the Unmoved mover the philosopher-emperor of Aristotelia prescribes. :)</i> <br /><br />A Catholic COULD offer sacrifice to the Unmoved Mover, for it is both the Unmoved Mover and the one true God. :-) <br /><br />(He just couldn't offer sacrifice in such manner as objectively repudiates the sacrifice of the New Covenant, nor "replaces" it. After all, Catholics make sacrifices all the time that are not <i>prescribed</i> by religious law). Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-62799871853469523662018-01-26T03:48:17.321-08:002018-01-26T03:48:17.321-08:00Whatever, therefore in things human is of a sacred...<i>Whatever, therefore in things human is of a sacred character, whatever belongs either of its own nature <b>or by reason of the end to which it is referred,</b> to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the Church. </i> <br /><br />Georgy, my sense of the model Pink constructs with all these documents is that he <i>cannot preclude</i> the following conclusion: since EVERY human (deliberate, voluntary) action of a man is either righteous or unrighteous, and thus is either ordered to God or ordered to some other end thus vitiating it, every such action falls under the jurisdiction of the sacred power. <br /><br />Yet Leo clearly (from the rest of the passage) does NOT accept such a picture. Nor I. Everything affects the sacred order, because everything affects the ultimate universal economy of the created order directed by God to an ultimate purpose, but not everything is under the <i>jurisdiction</i> of the ecclesiastical power. <br /><br />Not sure I can lay out in a few words how I would diverge from Pink and what model would look like. With Leo, I accept that each of the powers has its own <i>proper</i> sphere. "Each in its kind is supreme," and this does not leave much room for the concept that the civil is, <i>simply,</i> subordinate to the sacred. <br /><br />I also accept from Leo that the civil must <i>submit</i> to the sacred in respect of certain acts, decisions, requirements, and so on, but this qualified submission is not simple subordination, or it could not ALSO be "supreme" in its own sphere. Hence the necessary model of interaction must leave room for the civil to exercise its own proper power <i>not by reason of permission or grant</i> from the sacred. <br /><br />Perhaps my difference with Pink is something like this: There are civil matters - the sacred power does not have jurisdiction. There are sacred matters (e.g. sacraments) where the civil power has no jurisdiction. There are MIDDLE matters where both have a necessary role. My sense is that Pink would cede these to the jurisdiction of the sacred, whereas I would argue rather that the jurisdiction REMAINS shared: the civil power is required to submit to the sacred <i>so much as is necessary for the purposes of the sacred ends to be achieved</i>, but then RETAINS jurisdiction to act where its action does not defeat those sacred ends. In middle matters where both have a role, the civil power does retain <i>proper</i> authority to act where its decision is <b>not in contradiction</b> to the determinations of the sacred power. This is on a decision by decision basis, not on a "subject matter" basis. <br /><br />As a practical result: if natural law would prescribe that the state should suppress satanism as being a violation of the natural law as known by the natural light of reason, and the religious power has not <b>expressly</b> restrained the state from taking this action by a positive enactment on account of a sacred good which requires such restraint, the state RETAINS the right to so act even though the matter, in addition to affecting the civil order, also affects the sacred order. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-9290147902841484792018-01-26T02:20:03.936-08:002018-01-26T02:20:03.936-08:00@ Vincent
So you grant that a) heresy can legitim...@ Vincent<br /><br />So you grant that a) heresy can legitimately be criminalised; 2) it can be punished by severe penalties. <br /><br />It would appear that you have already resolved the immediate issue: why would you need to cite the option of exile, if you contest the general permissibility of death sentences for heresy? <br /><br />As to other problems, like the apparent conflation of doctrine and policy suggestions in the CCC, say, Drs. Feser's and Bessette's efforts can contribute to solving these.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-51314398029905737062018-01-26T02:02:36.432-08:002018-01-26T02:02:36.432-08:00In light of all of this, and the fact that I canno...In light of all of this, and the fact that I cannot reconstruct your position on the status and teaching of DH in such a way that would be favourable to the document, I'd appreciate it if you were to state it.<br />I adopt Dr. Pink's reading because I believe I have no right to select a reading of an authentic (that is, produced by the competent authority) document that posits a contradiction in it, unless it is impossible do avoid this rationally. If Dr. Pink's reading is the only one that succeeds at this (and I'm not aware of anything), I suppose we can add DH to the list of documents teaching the model described above.<br /><br />If it fails, I would have to conclude that for all I know (and before correction of the document/official interpretation by Rome or a council) DH contains error and thus cannot be accepted in toto as it is.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38803407645830221342018-01-26T01:50:27.239-08:002018-01-26T01:50:27.239-08:00If you happen to have a copy of Ott's "Fu...If you happen to have a copy of Ott's "Fundamentals" at hand, I would like to ask you to find the exact theological note attached to all of this, but it is my belief that, on the basis of sources cited by Pater Edmund and Dr. Pink, this teaching is as good a candidate for the status of constant ordinary Magisterium as any.<br /><br />But to cite the document already mentioned here, in Immortale Dei Leo XIII writes:<br /><br /><...> The Almighty, therefore, has given the charge of the human race to two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, the one being set over divine, and the other over human, things. Each in its kind is supreme, each has fixed limits within which it is contained, limits which are defined by the nature and special object of the province of each, so that there is, we may say, an orbit traced out within which the action of each is brought into play by its own native right. But, inasmuch as each of these two powers has authority over the same subjects, and as it might come to pass that one and the same thing-related differently, but still remaining one and the same thing-might belong to the jurisdiction and determination of both, therefore God, who foresees all things, and who is the author of these two powers, has marked out the course of each in right correlation to the other. <...> The nature and scope of that connection can be determined only, as We have laid down, by having regard to the nature of each power, and by taking account of the relative excellence and nobleness of their purpose. One of the two has for its proximate and chief object the well-being of this mortal life; the other, the everlasting joys of heaven. Whatever, therefore in things human is of a sacred character, whatever belongs either of its own nature or by reason of the end to which it is referred, to the salvation of souls, or to the worship of God, is subject to the power and judgment of the Church. Whatever is to be ranged under the civil and political order is rightly subject to the civil authority. Jesus Christ has Himself given command that what is Caesar's is to be rendered to Caesar, and that what belongs to God is to be rendered to God.<br /><br />(15.) There are, nevertheless, occasions when another method of concord is available for the sake of peace and liberty: We mean when rulers of the State and the Roman Pontiff come to an understanding touching some special matter. At such times the Church gives signal proof of her motherly love by showing the greatest possible kindliness and indulgence.<br /><br />(16.) Such, then, as We have briefly pointed out, is the Christian organization of civil society; not rashly or fancifully shaped out, but educed from the highest and truest principles, confirmed by natural reason itself.<br /><br />(17.) In such organization of the State there is nothing that can be thought to infringe upon the dignity of rulers, and nothing unbecoming them; nay, so far from degrading the sovereign power in its due rights, it adds to it permanence and luster. Indeed, when more fully pondered, this mutual co-ordination has a perfection in which all other forms of government are lacking, and from which excellent results would flow, were the several component parts to keep their place and duly discharge the office and work appointed respectively for each.<br /><br />http://w2.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_01111885_immortale-dei.htmlG. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-74093673080799635952018-01-26T01:40:18.904-08:002018-01-26T01:40:18.904-08:00As far as I can see, all the doctrinal elements of...As far as I can see, all the doctrinal elements of Dr. Pink's thesis mobilised in defense of his reading, the "Leonine model", are clearly contained in past Magisterium. The manual I have at hand (Enchiridion theologiae moralis, Egger, Brixen 1904), citing Immortale Dei, distinguishes between powers over a. internal forum and/in things concerning the supernatural and the spiritual, where the Church has exclusive jurisdiction (unice ad Ecclesiam pertinet); b. temporal realities immediately and by nature connected to a., where the Church enjoys priority (primo et principaliter), such as public education and matrimonial causes; c. merely temporal things indirectly and per accidens connected to great spiritual goods in light of particular circumstances, concerning which the same power as in b. is enjoyed by the Church; d. temporal things considered in light of the temporal end (sub respectu temporalis finis), concerning which the Church is naturally powerless.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-80806857590334039292018-01-26T01:11:58.822-08:002018-01-26T01:11:58.822-08:00@ Tony
I would object to the dilemma you formulat...@ Tony<br /><br />I would object to the dilemma you formulated. The divine ordinance in question is connected to reality (the will of God), even if the individual person is invincibly ignorant of it. I think it is entirely analogous to the "reatus" of original sin: you have it even if you do not know about it in good faith. Likewise, if the state doesn't yet know of the dimunition in question, the ruler cannot be blamed for his lack of recognition of this fact, but it is still materially bad. A Catholic subject of his would have to refuse to offer sacrifice to the Unmoved mover the philosopher-emperor of Aristotelia prescribes. :)<br />I think that the situation's different when it comes to duties of the state concerning public order even broadly understood (but not including religious error per se), and so I think a Catholic could ordinarily participate in their exercise even without explicit backing of Aristotelia by the Church, provided there's no legitimate condemnation by her. Given that this discussion is now mostly about positive law, the fact that the presumption in its favour can be overcome in cases of real necessity should disarm what seems to be your legitimate worry.<br /><br />Moral entities exist as long as and to the extent respective rights and duties do. A joint-stock company cannot, say, morally bear the sword qua JSC, even if its stock holders and employees believe in good faith that their corporation is generically or specifically different (and so respective commands can be said to exist subjectively and morally bind the people so erring).<br /><br />As the confessional obligation is there because of Christian revelation, it binds irrespective of constutional history, even if the state in question is to be absolved of positive rebellion against the Church (I think that the US is thus seriously analogous to, e.g., Ming China). There's nothing to cede, although erring about this in good faith is possible.<br /><br />If my understanding of moral theology is correct, if you're in -doubt- concerning liceity of an order issued by your superior, you are bound to execute it anyway, as your doubt doesn't cancel out the superior's right to your obedience (see, e.g. St. Alphonsus on this in Lib. IV de praec. partic. etc. par. 47).<br />G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-75440823813564968662018-01-25T16:21:54.863-08:002018-01-25T16:21:54.863-08:00I do think, however, that the creation of the Chur...<i>I do think, however, that the creation of the Church diminished the goals and therefore powers of the state....If God specifically created an exclusive authority to direct us in pursuit of something,</i> <br /><br />Georgy, did it do so for states that have not yet had <i>real</i> prospects for conversion to Christianity and become confessional states? Is the "God created an exclusive authority..." something that applies to them? If so, I must object: that's not connected to reality. If not, then the application DEPENDS not just on the mere existence of the Church (with its God-given role), but on other contingent facts of unfolding history and concrete events. <br /><br />At some point that a state ACTUALLY became confessional, there must have been a sufficiency of conversion of its people to warrant this - some satisfactory degree of "the people of this state believe, and it SHOULD reflect that belief in the official obligations of the state." At some prior point, there almost inevitably had to be <i>within reason</i> to become confessional, but still also <i>within some reason to doubt</i> the prudence of it becoming confessional as a state "just yet." Uncertain. Maybe yes, maybe no. In that period, if the state remained not confessional, and thus retained its primordial authority over religion as per the natural law, it was doing so EVEN THOUGH IT COULD HAVE turned confessional and ceded that claim. In effect, for such a state it <i>would actually</i> retain its old authority even though (possibly, maybe), it SHOULD have ceased to retain it. This condition / state of affairs is possible. And it can go in the opposite direction: <br /><br />If a state - like the US - is effectively spun off as a descendant of a state that AT ONE TIME was confessional and yet repudiated that confession and became (de-facto) insubordinate toward the Church, does the descendant "inherit" the parent state's disobedience AND also its former subordination? Or does it obtain primordial authorities of civil states when it became its own state with OTHER primordial authorities? <br /><br />(Let me rephrase that: if a person was at one time a good believing Catholic, and then threw off Christianity to become a heretic and Buddhist, and has a child and raises that child to believe Buddhism: is that child a heretic? Is he in <b>disobedience</b> to the Church's requirement to trust her judgments and accept them? The answer, of course, is no. A person who was never Christian is not a heretic for not believing.) <br /><br />Whatever Pink (and others) may say or think <i>follows from</i> their theory of state-Church fundamental relations, these matters are NOT determined (yet) by actual Church teaching. The Popes have not declared, the Councils have not declared, there are no bulls or decrees, there are no Fathers or Doctors who have prognosticated at length on it. There are, AT BEST, disputes among the theologians. And his thesis, while not bad, still has a lot of holes. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38346996161163538972018-01-25T15:56:44.653-08:002018-01-25T15:56:44.653-08:00Even if one considers a heretic a threat to public...<i>Even if one considers a heretic a threat to public order (e.g. in a Catholic state), there is always the option of exile.</i> <br /><br />So, it's OK for us to have him subject his evil on OTHER peoples? And, what if all other states are already Catholic? Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-68339805617862324252018-01-25T15:18:20.321-08:002018-01-25T15:18:20.321-08:00Hi Georgy,
"Would you deem the resolution st...Hi Georgy,<br /><br /><i>"Would you deem the resolution stating that the death penalty is per se morally legitimate unsatisfactory, and if you would, why, exactly?"</i><br /><br />Even if one considers a heretic a threat to public order (e.g. in a Catholic state), there is always the option of exile. In the case of a serial murderer, by contrast, this would not be appropriate, as he has done something morally outrageous which cries out to Heaven for retribution.Vincent Torleyhttp://www.angelfire.com/linux/vjtorley/index.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21111699423387462032018-01-25T14:27:18.076-08:002018-01-25T14:27:18.076-08:00@ Tony
I do not think that such a general rejecti...@ Tony<br /><br />I do not think that such a general rejection or lapse is possible. It seems to me that the hierarchy can no more legitimately forbid states to be minimally confessional than refuse baptism to a convert, which ordinarily cannot be done. The right to judge states is proper to the Church and hence cannot be relinquished as well. <br />If a policy chosen by the Church is unjust, the usual rules of resistance to such measures apply. But again, this has no bearing on the normal state of affairs one should aim at restoring in resisting the unjust command (given her divine constitution, one cannot go further than that in the case of the Church, unlike constitutional re-modeling options possibly available in cases of rebellion against temporal rulers). <br /><br />I'm not a "destructionist" with respect to temporal rule in the sense you describe above (and neither is Dr. Pink) in that I think that moral legitimacy of rule as such is not per se contingent on approval by the Church (Nero clearly did not enjoy the latter, but he was still emperor). I do think, however, that the creation of the Church diminished the goals and therefore powers of the state.<br />I suppose it's useful to keep in mind that the state is a moral unity: it emerges out of the duties humans have towards the common good(s). If God specifically created an exclusive authority to direct us in pursuit of something, there is quite literally no reason to subject oneself to something else in this sphere, and hence the state as a religious authority in its own right ceases to exist, objectively.<br /><br />An invincibly ignorant person can not be held responsible for some material sin the evil nature of which she is ignorant of. It's bad nonetheless.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-79163428268298465332018-01-25T12:47:13.821-08:002018-01-25T12:47:13.821-08:00Georgy, I didn't have time to finish the artic...Georgy, I didn't have time to finish the article. But like Walstein I reject both the Augustinian radicalism and the more modern-liberal versions Whig-Thomism, and I have always read John Courtney Murray with considerable distancing. <br /><br />But in light of post-VII and the <i>Church herself</i> rejecting the former model of "confessional state" (whether for good or ill), the Church herself rejecting his model of integralism <i>at least in practice</i> if not in principle, I would argue that the Church has chosen to LET LAPSE any right to tell states how to carry out the requirements of the natural law - particularly those regarding the entirely natural law requirements of just public order - which includes suppression of some degenerate forms of religious practice. <br /><br />Furthermore: while all states <i>ought</i> to come under the formal jurisdiction of the Church, not all states HAVE done so (notably, from history, states CANNOT do so until the Gospel is preached to that state) so it is necessarily a time- and condition- based obligation: I do not find convincing the more stringent versions that declares that Christ completely re-made the whole social structure by creating the Church, and (everywhere in the world) destroyed all kingship except as dependent on Her. In practice, if a state has not yet <i>determined</i> itself to be under the Church's jurisdiction, that state cannot have lost its primordial jurisdiction over religion to the extent of natural law. Whether a state can RECOVER that primordial jurisdiction, by repudiation of its subordination (and rejection of the Christian faith, obviously via sin), is certainly not made clear in Church teaching (so far as I have seen). Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-79002730117341772032018-01-25T11:20:33.386-08:002018-01-25T11:20:33.386-08:00The reason I'm not is because it cannot be don...The reason I'm not is because it cannot be done. :)<br />In the apparent conflict of duties, the primary wins, and examples like the seal of the confessional testify to the fact that common(est) good considerations are of primary importance here, even when it comes to the hypothetical higher standars.<br /><br />I apologise for the silliness.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47139903387635421082018-01-25T10:37:11.768-08:002018-01-25T10:37:11.768-08:00Now that I think of it, it was a fairly poor examp...Now that I think of it, it was a fairly poor example to begin this: after all, I'm not prepared to argue that we have a duty to insist on the necessity of this condition being met.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-69175067702634483962018-01-25T10:30:18.471-08:002018-01-25T10:30:18.471-08:00What I meant by "we forgo this" was &quo...What I meant by "we forgo this" was "the right to insist on the condition of satisfaction as necessary for forgiveness".G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-55546812306487853912018-01-25T10:27:14.080-08:002018-01-25T10:27:14.080-08:00Like it or not, the Church's ordinary magister...<i>Like it or not, the Church's ordinary magisterium would have been the "only or primary reason" for people living through the Trinitarian and Christological controversies of the fourth to seventh centuries, as the doctrinal points at issue had not been previously defined. But if, as you say, a waiting period of millennia is required to make an ordinary teaching infallible, then any appeal to the ordinary magisterium would have been pointless, because it would have been premature.</i> <br /><br />I emphatically do not say that "a waiting period of millennia is required to make an ordinary teaching infallible". I don't know anybody who says that. I offered that a waiting period of a millenium (with constant repetition and consent by Doctors and theologians) may make infallible what had before that been true but notionally reformable. <br /><br />But your technique of pushing back a difficult question works JUST AS WELL before we can find a consensus of the Fathers: What would a Christian in Rome of year 60 do? Trust Peter. What would a Christian of year 150 in Smyrna do? Follow Polycarp, who had sat at the foot of St. John. For that matter, in what way did the people of 70 and 80 and 100 and 120 know which writings were those of God and were worthy to be read at Mass, and which were not? They did not have the Canon of Scripture, and the great Fathers had not yet propounded on the subject? <br /><br />It is not that it is impossible to have had the truth, or "reliable" guides to truth, it is that the reliability might have been less than that of "infallibility" for some of those truths. The very statements of the Church's defined doctrine on the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium explicitly resort to criteria that require time. Those statements DO NOT specify millennia, but they create conditions in which doctrine may become infallibly taught over the course of a millennium: they don't state that the time involved DOES NOT involve a millenium, either. (Nor am I harping specifically on millennia as if 1000 years were some magic bullet: as said above, it is the REPETITION of the teaching, constantly and widely <i>and</i> over time, that is involved. There is no concrete rule on "how much".) Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-10384230092514671632018-01-25T10:26:43.662-08:002018-01-25T10:26:43.662-08:00Right, apologies, I should've been clearer: wh...Right, apologies, I should've been clearer: what I think is not clear from natural law alone (at least to me) is the duty of, say, a former friend to become friends again with a person that wronged him even when 'full restoration' of the said friendship can reasonably be expected. But perhaps I'm wrong in thinking that Christianity modifies this scenario: the ethics of friendship is not something I have a decent grasp of.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-76599997775938823652018-01-25T09:59:48.015-08:002018-01-25T09:59:48.015-08:00For example, the Christian duty to forgive irrespe...<i>For example, the Christian duty to forgive irrespective of satisfaction is not something I think natural law establishes, indeed, satisfaction of some sort seems to me to be a perfectly just condition. Yet we are to forgo this. </i> <br /><br />Actually, I only recently realized that this is not QUITE correct, and it is something that the "we are called to forgive" abolishers of DP fail to grasp altogether. <br /><br />When we go to confession and get absolution, the priest, in persona Christi, forgives our sins. Yet there a <i>temporal debt of punishment due for sin</i> that is not relieved by the forgiveness of the sin. <br /><br />Therefore, it is not true that <b>in every respect</b> "forgiveness" implies "no satisfaction need be paid". <br /><br />I think that this also applies in personal relations between Christians. If someone takes 1,000 from my cash box, I am obliged to forgive him. I am not obliged to not ACCEPT BACK the repayment of the 1,000 that he stole. This is not what Christian charity demands. Indeed, in order for him to receive absolution from a priest, HE is required to make restitution (if possible), which <i>implies that I am to receive back what was taken</i>. It would make no sense that his absolution demands restitution but my forgiving him obliges me not to accept restitution. <br /><br />Therefore, the Gospel demand of "forgiveness" in charity for an offence against one's person or personal effects does not entail repudiation of just recompense. <br /><br />One can readily argue the parallel case for the state: when the Christian state employs charity as called for by the Gospel, doing so does not AS SUCH entail the repudiation of just recompense. <br /><br />(A not-quite-similar case comes up when a man forgives his brother for doing wrong, but (because the sin is habitual) does not TRUST his brother not to sin again, and may even take steps to prevent it. Forgiveness of the past does not entail being stupid about the future.) <br /><br />What we need is a more fine-tuned understanding of forgiving someone for an offence. Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07159134209092031897noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-43359118352828546162018-01-25T09:45:15.969-08:002018-01-25T09:45:15.969-08:00I should probably add that I have a strong impress...I should probably add that I have a strong impression that any orthodox Catholic monarch, East or West, would be baffled by the suggestion that she isn't part of the Church. The throne is not a position within her sacerdotal hierarchy, to be sure, but any Catholic state is part of the Church. The arm is a part of the body, to be sure, but this parthood alone does not comprehensively determine what we are to do with it.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71302060014194322252018-01-25T08:56:06.778-08:002018-01-25T08:56:06.778-08:00I think you're quite right if by coherence you...I think you're quite right if by coherence you mean the impossibility of contradiction between positive imperatives. <br /><br />If an angel appeared to us in a pub, declared that it is the will of God that you kill me, this being followed by a miracle sealing this revelation, if all of this were acknowledged by the ordinary, you would have to kill me and I would do my best not to resist, even if there were no explanation for the command.<br /><br />If the angel in question would specifiy the reason as "God wishes to punish him for his innocence of this crime", one would do best to run and fetch an exorcist.<br /><br />I don't think that people on the opposing side (I'm "pro") of the debate conceptualise their argument like this. <br /><br />They seem to think that God revealed a positive duty to obstain from retribution of this sort (I take Hart to mean just that), and I think that if that were the case, obstaining from some action prescribed by natural law would be justifiable under double effect.<br /><br />For example, the Christian duty to forgive irrespective of satisfaction is not something I think natural law establishes, indeed, satisfaction of some sort seems to me to be a perfectly just condition. Yet we are to forgo this.<br /><br />I believe the problem is rather that in making this sort of argument the opponent presupposes that prescribing this Christ made no distinction between private and common goods, something neither the Sacred Scripture nor Tradition support, indeed, the latter directly condemns.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25235472877894095002018-01-25T08:23:10.158-08:002018-01-25T08:23:10.158-08:00@ Vincent
"There may be a satisfactory resol...@ Vincent<br /><br />"There may be a satisfactory resolution to this question, but I'm blowed if I can see it. Cheers."<br /><br />Would you deem the resolution stating that the death penalty is per se morally legitimate unsatisfactory, and if you would, why, exactly?G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-38718379574404800082018-01-25T08:17:10.308-08:002018-01-25T08:17:10.308-08:00I think it's incumbent on all states to become...I think it's incumbent on all states to become confessional at least in the sense of recognising the exclusive truth of Catholicism and correcting the laws in accordnance with Catholic morality. But jurisdiction over the exercise of the virtue of religion (and hence failures in it) is still exclusively reserved for the Church. The "theologico-political" matters, in which the Church has priority, but not exclusive jurisdiction, are a much more complicated topic, but I think that the legal status of religious non-conformists rather plausibly is such a question, at least in so far as it does not concern public order primarily.<br /><br />Naturally, if we consider policies in both spheres, the rule about clear necessity applies. I'd say that the a hypothetical prince would have every right to suppress satanists in his realm even contrary to the expressed wish of the bishops or even the Pope, provided the danger to the souls of his subjects were clear and the reasons for episcopal reluctance insufficient, just as a parent would be empowered to catechise her children herself if the priest were to teach vile heresy and corrupt their mores. This would happen through "supplied" legitimacy/jurisdiction, though, and would do nothing to change the default legal norms concerning the "distribution" of authority.G. Mancz 滿償喬治https://www.blogger.com/profile/15753680642571164788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-8867941619734486832018-01-25T08:16:59.911-08:002018-01-25T08:16:59.911-08:00This book is helpful in understanding how to diges...This book is helpful in understanding how to digest conflicting statements from the Magisterium. https://www.amazon.ca/Magisterial-Authority-Fr-Chad-Ripperger/dp/1503022420Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02522134521889063418noreply@blogger.com