Why the arguments for atheism are moral arguments, and why that matters

At ST Ia Q2 A3, where Aquinas offers his well-known “five ways” of proving God’s existence, he notes and replies to two objections. To paraphrase, the first is that “infinite goodness” is incompatible with the existence of “evil”; the second, that citing God is “superfluous” as an explanation for the world’s existence. It’s pretty evident [...]

Development of Doctrine IV

Both here and at Sacramentum Vitae, I’ve been involved in a long-running debate about the development of doctrine with conservative scholars from each of the three major Christian traditions.  (By ‘conservative’ I mean those who believe that the “faith once given to the saints” is definitive, fully and publicly identifiable in Tradition and Scripture, [...]

More to motion than movement?

In the 13th chapter of the 1st book of his Summa contra Gentes, St. Thomas begins his argument for the existence of God from the effect of motion by saying, “Everything that is moved is moved by another [quod omne motum movetur ab alio].”  The modern mind, however, might immediately recoil at this claim and, [...]

The letter of the law…

I want this post to piggyback on the discussion taking place about sola Scriptura. To be honest, I tend to avoid that debate, partially because it seems to devolve more quickly than others into pedantic, hairsplitting, pulpit-pounding backbiting; it’s a credit to this blog and its readers that that has not happened thus far.
All I [...]

Freedom is for Worship

The setting is first century second Temple Judaism. It is hard to fully describe the worldview of second Temple Judaism because it was pluralistic. We know that there were many eschatological movements and it is safe to say that “eschatology” in that time meant a restoration of Israel and the cosmos under the one God. [...]

Rebutting the Pelosi anti-catechism

The Speaker of the House apparently has her own account of Catholic teaching on the subject of abortion. At least she is to be credited for tackling the philosophical and theological issues instead of dodging them like St. Barack, who professed it was “above my pay grade.” She is to be credited for courage because [...]