Fides Quaerens Intellectum

I AM NOT A WRITER!!

2011-07-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

It is no surprise to me that I am not a great writer. Writing papers has been the worst part of my quest for a Masters in Theology. And this last class is no exception. I am struggling to put together a paper on the principles behind the dialogue between Faith and Science in the Catholic intellectual tradition. It is KILLING me!! If I had taken this course at the beginning I would have dismissed any idea of my gaining an advanced degree in anything. Aaargh!!!

Notes on De Trinitate Book VIII - Hilda

2009-02-28T06:24:00.000-08:00

De Trinitatis Book VIII, Hill translation

Using Hill’s introduction helps us to notice the link between what we experience and what St Augustine is drawing us to extrapolate about God.

Introduction p. 24, paragraph 20
Augustine finds a link between the Mystery of God and the more accessible mystery of man in truth and goodness.

Truth- in terms of what we know and understand
Goodness- in terms of that which we desire, approve, and love.

God is the “mold” or “structure” of the human self/mind…

Perhaps we can use chapter opening quotes to lead in especially # 2 which shows how we know by analogy

Book VIII- Through the Looking Glass
Prologue- repeats the difference in Trinitarian Persons while asserting all are God.

Chapter 1, para. 2.
-While we can perceive truth in created things we are blinded by “Truth” itself.
-The Trinity is not tangible but apprehended with the mind. It is unchangeable, all the “omnis”, the nth degree of great, true, etc. so that if each is fullness, none can be greater.
(bottom of 2) “The Trinity itself is as great as any one person it it.”

Para. 3.
-Unlike created things which can lack fullness of one gift while being endowed with another…the Trinity cannot be compared thus…
-Unlike created things which can change…God is changeless…
-“God is light (1 Jn 1:5) not such as these eyes see, but such as the mind sees when it
Hears”….ENLIGHTENMENT

Chapter 2
-Natural knowledge of good things leads to an awareness of goodness. This is how we
“see” God, the Good of every Good.
-Natural knowledge of goodness comes from comparing quality of good things, some
are superior.
-As we approve of the superior we are led to “love” God.

Para 4 (end)
-In order to “see” or “be” good, the created must choose deliberately to turn toward or
compare to the “ideal” good…
-This changing, or choice is seen in contrast to a standard, i.e. The Good, God…

Para 5
-The soul created by the Good, is drawn to the good when it chooses to improve. If it
chooses not to improve, it is still a soul since its existence comes from God and not
from itself…

Chapter 3, (para 6)
-How do we believe what we cannot see? It is the human spirit which in the
commitment to “love by faith” allows itself to have the virtues.

Para 7
-“What does matter is that we believe that God became Man for us as an example of
humility and to demonstrate God’s love for us.”
-Then we collect data that leads to knowledge of God by knowledge of His Son.

Para 8
-We believe according to a standard of likeness we know, then love what is yet
unknown. (?? p. 248)

Chapter 4
-We recognize the mind of others by what we know of our own minds.

Para 9
-In order for someone who is not yet just to become just, he must wish to be just which
Comes from loving justice in another.
-Justice is a “sort of beauty of mind” concept found inside ourselves that we wish to
attain to be like someone who fits that image. That form “knowingly and deliberate-
ly in life and in conduct gives each man what is his own”, “in order to owe no man
anything but to love one another. (Rom 13:8)

Chapter 5
-Warp on which to weave the fabric of Trinitarian image in Man…

Para 10
-If a man loves his neighbor, he loves LOVE itself. Above all, he loves GOD…

Para 11
-Not loving God’s powers or the powers in nature, but loving the Creator from Whom
all powers come. We do not need to search for the beloved, He is with us.

Para 12
-Charity personified loves “herself”. Brotherly love quoted from the epistle ( 1 Jn 4:7)
generally equates love of brother with love of God. And this LOVE is God.
-We love someone out of love as we love someone out of God. God becomes the action
, i.e. Love.
-By loving the seen, we see with spiritual light, i.e. inner vision, God.

Para 13
-The love that Paul and his followers lived makes us love their life. Belief in their life enflames us with charity toward that way of life.

Para 14
-“Now love means someone loving and something loved with love.
-Three: the lover, what is being loved and love…
-Finally, we have not found the answer but perhaps the path to the answer…

Notes on De Trinitate - Chapter VIII - Jen

2009-02-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

Book VIII – Saint Augustine’s De Trinitate

Preface – Each individual person of the Trinity does not equal the Trinity but all one God and fully God. The same applies to all the attributes of God; no diversity of their essence.

I would really like to use this paragraph in our presentation because I think it sums up the study of the Trinity:
“These are the things we have affirmed; and the more often we repeat and discuss them then, of course, the knowledge of them will become more familiar to us; but at the same time we also have to set some limit to our treatise. And we must supplicate God with the most devout piety, that He may open our understanding and take away the spirit of contention, in order that our mind may gaze upon the essence of truth that is without any bulk and without any mobility. Therefore, insofar as the Creator Himself in His marvelous mercy comes to our help, let us turn our attention to these subjects, which we shall analyze in a more subtle manner than those which have preceded, although they are in fact the same. Meanwhile let us hold fast to this rule, that what has not yet become clear to our intellect may still be preserved by the firmness of our faith.”

Chapter 1 – When we consider the Trinity we must remember that quantitative difference does not equal essentially greater (i.e. “the Father + the Son > the Holy Spirit” – this statement is not possible) the Father and the Son together do not hold more truth and power than the Holy Spirit. Together they do not surpass the greatness of the Spirit. These things may be so with created things but not with the uncreated, unchangeable Maker of all things. They are of the same substance and constitute the same Source of truth and greatness.

Chapter 2 – Do not imagine any 3 bodies or a Geryon (that is a mythological creature with 1 head and 3 bodies) when considering the Trinity. (Even the 3-leaf clover analogy falls short)
The mind cannot imagine such a wonder nor can the earth produce a proper analogy to understand the mystery of the Trinity. Everything falls short and points more to what that Trinity is not than what it is.
When as first blinded by the Truth, do not ask, “ What is Truth?” and attempt to analyze it. Instead strive to remain in the light of Truth, living in awe and contemplation instead of calculation and analysis.

Chapter 3 – All things are good insofar as they participate in the Being of Goodness. We may look at good things of the world, but by putting the things aside and focusing on the goodness itself, we will encounter God.

Chapter 4 – Even after all the reading, learning and contemplating on God one still falls short in understanding Him. We even fall short when we try to understand created things, like a city. We can try to picture the Apostles but we all have different views and cannot know now whose is more accurate.

Chapter 5 – We cannot know certainly and specifically about God.
“What likeness and comparison with know things can we believe, so that we may also love God who is not yet known?”
Chapter 6 – We know that what a things is by our study of it (i.e. te soul or just-ness). One can love what he himself is not but one cannot love what he does not know. Even one who is deformed can still love the beauty which he himself lacks. We know it outside ourselves in others.
Knowing about Carthage is different from encountering the city itself. The image I hold in my mind of the city through study and speaking with others who have been there falls far short of capturing the essence of the city itself – “For we find nothing similar to it outside of itself, so that by believing we might love it when it is unknown, by reason of something similar that we already know.”

Chapter 7 – LOVE – love is not desire – God is Love

Chapter 8 – “Embrace love, God, and embrace God by love.”
1 John 4: 7-8,20 – “For he who does not love his brother is not in love and he who is not in love is not in God, because God is love.” This same truth applies to darkness. If we do not love him whom we can see, how can we love Him whom we do not see?
“We, therefore, love God and our neighbor from one and the same love, but we love God on account of God, but ourselves and our neighbor on account of God.”

Chapter 9 – The more we love God the more we can clearly see Him as He is.

Chapter 10 – In love there is: the lover, the beloved and the love. The love binds the lover and the beloved together.

Book VIII

2009-02-24T10:56:00.001-08:00

Deacon Dean,

As you know my tendency is to give background and detail and leave the final conclusions to others. I think the introduction to book VIII as well as some of the introduction in front of the book is important. I just don't know if we have enough time to do all that we would if not given any restraint on time. I am therefore open to direction as to which way we proceed.

Deacon Ray

WELCOME, DEACON RAY!

2009-02-05T11:21:00.000-08:00

Deacon Ray, welcome! I hope our fellow "expository presenters" can find their way here, as well. This is, hopefully, a good place to share ideas, to "brainstorm, and to further our collective Theological understanding.

First question to you. Do you think we should include the introduction to Book VIII in our presentation?

AND SO IT BEGINS

2008-09-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

This is intended to be a place where Faith can, indeed, seek understanding. A place where, hopefully, the seeds of knowledge planted over the course of semesters spent in study in the Masters programs at Notre Dame Seminary and Our Lady of Holy Cross College in New Orleans will begin to yield good fruits. A place to share, discuss, reflect, and hopefully grow in our Catholic faith.