Is My Phylactery Showing?: October 2010

STIII, Q13

My regular weekly installment of summaries for Christology. I plan to post something on the "AI Wars," an episode aired on National Geographics' channel tonight. I'm hoping I can lure Jimmy Akin to responding on that post since he seems to speculate quite a bit on such things.

But for now, it's all Aquinas... all the time.

A1. The Divine nature is unbounded and from it flows active power to all things that have the nature being. Clearly, since the principle of human nature is the Divine power, human nature (in Christ’s soul) cannot itself be omnipresent.

Oct

That's my girl

Last week, I was fortunate to attend my daughter's first orchestral concert of the year. This week (tonight, in fact), I was able to attend her first choral concert. I'm pleased on both accounts. In last week's concert, she conducted one of the pieces. This week, she sang in the a Capella and treble choirs. She will be playing with the chamber orchestra in November, and I'm hoping my travel schedule doesn't conflict.

Oct

Infused and Acquired Knowledge in Christ

It seems that last week's marathon was bit of a fluke. I'm still sticking with an abbreviated summary of the questions.

Q11

A1. St. Thomas distinguishes between two passive powers in the soul: the active intellect, which operates by natural reason, and the obediential potency [Hardon] which is reduced to act through Divine revelation. Through the first, we can know through empirical knowledge and reason. Through the latter, we know by way of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Oct

Finally... a bacon latte!

I knew it was only a matter of time.

Oct

Questions about God's and Christ's Knowledge

For all my non-Catholic friends, the title should not suggest that we Catholics don't believe that Christ was God. We absolutely believe in His divinity. However, these questions treat God's knowledge in the Divine nature, and Christ's knowledge in human nature. It's a rather interesting exercise that St. Thomas puts us through.

III Q9

A1. Possessing a human soul (a rational soul), Christ possessed created knowledge. A perfect human soul has potential to know intelligible things.

Oct

In case you weren't sure what the sponsors of 10:10 think of dissenting views...

They make it plain and simple. Don't watch if you're squeamish.

When I first saw this, I thought it was a satire of how some climate-change advocates view the opposition.