We have to learn to move forward in our thought by trying to honestly perceive reality and to openheartedly respond to it while becoming aware of the distortions of the preconceptions we always bring to such tasks. This is a logical development of the insight we have inherited from Aquinas and a few of his [...]
I saw this quote on the Internet recently: I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light. [Sir Isaac Newton] Newton knew how to think. In Thomistic terms, serious thinking is an intentional process, that is [...]
Nearly all human beings, nearly all the time, think only thoughts which have been thought already within their sphere of knowledge, typically some level and region of a particular culture. Few and far between are the identifiable creative thinkers, though we must remember that creative thinkers are also members of specific communities which provide the [...]
God has shaped a thing-like world out of more basic stuff. I’ve discussed this in various ways, especially in the category: Christian in the Universe of Einstein. We human beings form our minds by responding actively to that world and by penetrating to understandings of that more basic stuff. A particular thing is a manifestation [...]
[I'm working on a series of books summarizing my thoughts and writings over the past 3+ years, building upon the contents of my first published book, To See a World in a Grain of Sand. As I review my work to-date, I'll be republishing some of the articles from my blogs, sometimes pretty much unaltered [...]
Once the thought of Plato and Aristotle had a home — the Greek city-state. Once the thought of St. Paul and St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas had a home — Western Civilization. The two situations were different because the Greek philosophers struggled to find the best way to inhabit a home built by their [...]
Truth unfolds in time through communal processes. I’ve realized there is possibly a very clear example of what this means in an area where I’ve perhaps misspoken a little. Maybe I’ve simply been in error. In any case, I’m also willing to claim that new truths might emerge in time through various processes, new truths [...]
More than a year ago, I wrote some articles on the relationship between Thomistic existentialism and Jamesian pragmatism as developed by William James himself and further developed in recent years by two neuroscientists, Gerald Edelman and Walter J. Freeman. There is a great overlap between Thomistic existentialism and Jamesian pragmatism in the initial steps of [...]
Americans who claim to be traditionalist Catholics are fighting on two sides holding irreconcilable views on the most fundamental of questions, such as “What is man?” and “What is truth?”. Most seem oblivious to the battle though they stand in the middle, one sword in their right hands to slash at their own left sides [...]
There are those who passively accept what they’re taught and they are those who rebel as if instinctively, denying traditional beliefs and outlooks by denying conclusions without remembering that human thought is a process. It remains a process even when dealing with truths revealed by God — which are far fewer in number than many [...]