Anarthlic on Nostr: Borrowing a quote by Blaise Paschal, which was invoked by a certain blogger, ...
Borrowing a quote by Blaise Paschal, which was invoked by a certain blogger, recently:
“I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God.”
The Cartesian reality—meaning, that Descartes created a ‘reality’ within his own rules (that is ‘logical’ within his system)—renders a “natural law” only based argument absurd. It wasn’t yet absurd during the time of the Greeks but it has become absurd after the Logos Incarnate. It is especially even more absurd when the Aristotelian framework is appropriated, as St Thomas did, in the reverse—taking things written by those whose ideas are premised in Protest of Catholicism (the truth). In doing so, one gives credence to the non-Catholic position—because if the non-Catholic position can “reach the truth”, conversion to that which we hold the One, True Faith, irrelevant and unnecessary.
And the Cartesian phenomenon—and all those modern and post-modern “philosophers” that came after, illustrate the reality of the sordid and absurd attempt.
What is instead tenable, realistic, truthful, and helpful, is to find non-Catholic thinkers, who recognize the reasonable beauty of Catholicism—because in this way, we identify and proclaim what should be obvious after the Logos Incarnate—that the stripping of Catholicism from reality will inevitably lead to a Cartesian plane, powered by the Hegelian dialectic, with Kantian lenses.
In the end, St. Thomas said, his Summa was all straw.
“I cannot forgive Descartes. In all his philosophy he would have been quite willing to dispense with God. But he had to make Him give a fillip to set the world in motion; beyond this, he has no further need of God.”
The Cartesian reality—meaning, that Descartes created a ‘reality’ within his own rules (that is ‘logical’ within his system)—renders a “natural law” only based argument absurd. It wasn’t yet absurd during the time of the Greeks but it has become absurd after the Logos Incarnate. It is especially even more absurd when the Aristotelian framework is appropriated, as St Thomas did, in the reverse—taking things written by those whose ideas are premised in Protest of Catholicism (the truth). In doing so, one gives credence to the non-Catholic position—because if the non-Catholic position can “reach the truth”, conversion to that which we hold the One, True Faith, irrelevant and unnecessary.
And the Cartesian phenomenon—and all those modern and post-modern “philosophers” that came after, illustrate the reality of the sordid and absurd attempt.
What is instead tenable, realistic, truthful, and helpful, is to find non-Catholic thinkers, who recognize the reasonable beauty of Catholicism—because in this way, we identify and proclaim what should be obvious after the Logos Incarnate—that the stripping of Catholicism from reality will inevitably lead to a Cartesian plane, powered by the Hegelian dialectic, with Kantian lenses.
In the end, St. Thomas said, his Summa was all straw.