What does it all mean? For one thing, it means I am happy to be Catholic. That means a lot to me.
This is a quote from George Orwell’s 1984. Thank you to my wise friend, TVD - Tom Van Dyke - for quoting this in a comment on his blog, American Creation.
Only the disciplined mind can see reality, Winston. You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. You also believe that the nature of reality is self-evident. When you delude yourself into thinking that you see something, you assume that everyone else sees the same thing as you. But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane.'
He paused for a few moments, as though to allow what he had been saying to sink in.
'Do you remember,' he went on, 'writing in your diary, "Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four"?'
'Yes,' said Winston.
O'Brien held up his left hand, its back towards Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
'How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?'
'Four.'
'And if the party says that it is not four but five -- then how many?'
'Four.'
The word ended in a gasp of pain.
Merci, sister. I'm honored.
ReplyDeleteWhat they would argue--and the Reformation argued--is that "The Party" is the Catholic Church--institutionalized error. But their solution was even more hopeless, leaving truth up to the individual mind and conscience. Which is OK in theory, but as we see, this results in thousands, millions, and billions of "truths."
But there is only one truth. Just as there is only one God, there can be only One Truth. 2 + 2 = 4. Not 5.
This was our beloved brother Thomas Aquinas's great project, to place the Christian truth on the table against all comers, philosophical or theological: Aristotle, the Muslim Ibn Rushd [Averroës], the great Jewish philosopher Maimonides.
The Summa contra Gentiles, also known as Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium "Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers."
http://theaquinasinstitute.org/summa-contra-gentiles/
2 + 2 = 4. Always has, always will.
Yes. It shocked me to see them argue the way they did. I hadn’t heard that kind of confused gobbledygook since my university days.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I discovered was that the Reformed Scholastics changed certitude to certainty. A person could have certainty about their faith, but not certitude as the Catholic Church teaches. That may explain part of their confusion. Of course, that doesn’t mean that a person can have certitude about everything, but about some things , yes. Certitude doesn’t mean exhaustive knowledge. One does not have to be omniscient in order to have certitude about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Incarnation, or the Divinity of the Trinity, for example.
That little change from “certitude” to “certainty” introduced a wee bit of relativity to matters of faith. Hence they argued that one can never be 100% certain about anything. After all, somewhere, somehow 2 + 2 just might = 5 or some other number. Oh, and there might be bats flying out my nose. I could not say with certitude that somewhere, somehow there are teeny tiny bats that could fly in and out of my nose. Somehow I was not smart enough to understand the meaning of those kinds of arguments.
I really got into trouble with them for saying that theirs was a man centered faith. See, Reformed guys like to tell everyone else that their faith is man centered and Reformed faith is God centered. Actually, like you point out, in Reformed tradition it is the individual conscience and mind that casts the deciding vote in matters of faith and practice. So, that makes it man centered. They don’t like being told that!
They were trying to marry a philosophy of science to their theology and it was not working. At the end, they said as much.
Just go back to St. Thomas Aquinas and your mind will thank you. Your spirit will thank you.
Thomas was and is Roman Catholic. However, as you have pointed out, not all Thomists are Roman Catholic. Some argue that he was proto Reformed.
That’s a hard sell given the fact that he was devoted to Mary, defended the Catholic practice of the veneration of saints - using a Deuterocanonical passage to do it - , was a Catholic priest, and one of the Church’s best defenders of Transubstantiation. AND, it turns out that a lot of Reformed guys were actually proto Catholics and have now become part of the New Evangelization! You know what - or rather, who - is the common denominator in many of their conversion stories? Yes. St. Thomas Aquinas led them Home.
Some are not happy about that reverse narrative. It’s Catholics who are supposed to see the light and leave the Church for Protestantism, not the other way around, for heaven’s sake! That sneaky St. Thomas, still busy bringing men and women Home.
Anyway, nice to see you, Tom, as always. I guess I’m still traumatized by the idea that there might be tiny bats flying in and out of my nose without my knowledge. What if it’s true? All this time I thought it was just boogers.
Protestants make my head hurt. Fortunately, and as always, Thomas anticipated and answered their objections hundreds of years before Luther was even born.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.calledtocommunion.com/2009/08/st-thomas-aquinas-on-assurance-of-salvation/
This won’t interest you so much, Tom, but the Reformed theologians like to say that their theology is God centered, not man centered. That is their appeal. They accuse the Catholic Church and other Christian groups of being man centered and man made.
ReplyDeleteIt really tends to be the other way around. Otherwise, why would even Reformed groups whose theology is exactly the same separate from one another over minor differences? If it were so God centered, then why is there so much division?
There is a Dutch town not far from us. Most of the people are Dutch Reformed. However, in that small town, there are several different Dutch Reformed groups. The members of one do not speak to the members of the others. Sometimes even families are divided because of some difference of opinion over this or that. How can that be?
That is just one example, but it is quite striking. At the same time, these really are good, Christian people, but they can’t resolve their differences for some reason.
Yes, Protestants will point to the internal differences within Catholicism. The word “internal” is key.
The Church also recognizes that there are many fine Protestant theologians and Bible experts. The Catholic teachers I listen to - including Bishop Baron - all quote Protestant sources as well as Catholic.
Even so, there are huge chunks of Christianity that have gone missing in Protestant teaching. Protestants would say that Catholics have added huge chunks that don’t belong.
However, Church history is on the side of the Catholic Church when it comes to the priesthood, the primacy of the Bishop of Rome sitting in the seat of Peter, apostolic succession, the sinlessness of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so many other teachings that have been erased from Protestant theology. The most striking is the meaning of the Eucharist, the “source and summit of the Christian life.” CCC
Saints and doctors of the Church are cherry picked, thus obscuring their real identity in a way. St. Augustine was a priest and Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. So was St. Anselm. St. Thomas Aquinas was also a Roman Catholic priest. How can Protestants quote them while at the same time calling the Church they were under “apostate” and “The Great Whore of Babylon”? How could the Great Whore produce such great saints that all Christians cherish and claim as their own?
Not to mention the great artistic accomplishments of the Whore as well as Western Civilization itself?
Like I have said many times, I love so many of the Protestant preachers and teachers that I have listened to and read. My friends and colleagues are some of the best Christians I know - all of them Protestant.
There is no denying that.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by, Tom. It’s kind of dangerous for Protestants to start reading Aquinas. Hey, it’s dangerous for Protestants to start reading St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, or any of the Church Fathers. Thomas is especially dangerous.
Of course, I was opposed to my Mother for a long, long time. It’s hard for me now to even remember why. All roads did lead me to Rome.