Hello everyone, I hope you guys are well because today we're going to have a discussion hellthread
on G. K. Chesterton's book of St. Thomas Aquinas. Since you guys have been reading the book I will cut it short: this book is a short introduction on St. Thomas's life. But do not be deceived, this book doesn't only contain the life of St. Thomas but also Chesterton's critique agaist the modern world and his philosophy. This 94 pages book brings more than what you would expect from an an introduction.To open the discussion, I will bring out questions. The first one is: Apart from being a biography of St. Aquinas, what other themes do you think were central to the book?
As always be civil or and enjoy the discussion #bookclub
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1. Apart from being a biography of St. Aquinas, what other themes do you think were central to the book?
- Placing 13th Century Christendom within the contxt of wider society. The opening chapters, showing Aquinas' family as archetypal medieval aristocracy, brought out how heterogeneous and hierarchical this society was; today, although we are more specialised in our vocations, almost all of us fall into some variation of the 9-5 homo economicus; even politicians and billionaires are roped into a somewhat homogenous post-modern secularism. The background of the 13th century threw this into sharp relief.
- Aquinas' virtues of Humility, Faith and Reason:
- Humility is presented somewhat differently to how we see it nowadays. Instead of the cringing obedience and weakness that modern society associates with humility, there is an unassuming air, a respect for one's limits in knowledge and capability, and a sense that one's persepctives and opinions should not be pressed upon others without sufficient justification.
- Faith is something very difficult for us to understand, and it is hard to place within our modern context. In the case of Aquinas it seems to be a gift of divine grace, inborn. It is difficult not to envy this in him. I don't know about you guys, but it almost makes me wish I were Catholic. This is not a simple choice to be made, it seems. Faith is faith - although perhaps Aquinas' aim is to convert?
- Reason, Chesterton argues, is absent from modern discourse, and it is hard to see how things have gotten any better. Systematic application of reason to life, in the service of a single, unitive philosophy, is both incredibly and appealing and seemingly incredible in the world we now live in. From where we stand, Aquinas' time must seem far simpler and perhaps this is some of his appeal; the vast breadth of modern knowledge beggars belief that one man could credibly bring it under his aegis and impose a system. That being said, human life may have changed at the extremes but there is little that is not conditioned by the human condition; there is good reason to use the philosophy of Aquinas, setting questions of religious belief to one side, as a bedrock and foundation for understanding the kernel of life.
Now you are making me want to read into his virtues here.
It's strange how we now live in a different era despite living in the same world with the same human condition. Things are the same around us but our society is different. That it is more difficult to have faith, that we have redefined things like humility to be a bad thing. Sometimes I, too, wish that I could believe in these things. That it wasn't so difficult to have faith. I live in a world that has decided that god is dead and faith is obsolete. It's hard to reconcile with it all. Even religion has decided that rather than focusing on faith, it has become worldly instead. So going to some churches, I get very similar global messages.
These ideas about humility and faith remind me of how C.S Lewis describes the four loves, in particular the idea of charity and how it relates to love.
Hello bookfriends,
the conversation might have started a bit slow but it came to be very interesting.
I'm thinking we should post the rest of the questions, see if there's any more interest and take it from there.
3. What's your impression of the journey of St. Thomas?
4. Do you think that there can be Saints in the modern age?
5. What did you think of Chesterton's writing style and him as an author? Would you read any other books of his?
Having every member participate in the discussion threads, to the extent everyone feels comfortable to, is very important since it would not only make for a great group read but it would also elevate the Club to something more than simple parallel reading, it'd transform it into a community.
Thank you for you attention.
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4. Do you think that there can be Saints in the modern age?
I think Saints are defined within a Christian context, and while we might see more Christian Saints, they may not have the impact that they had in the past.
Without a centralising philosophy or religion, value judgements become far more fluid and thus it's difficult for an individual to exemplify what a culture needs at a given time - there are tens if not hundreds of interwoven cultures, each of which may pass like ships in the night with respect to their own saints, see Linus or RMS who come close to saints in the open source world but outside few have heard of them
And I don't think you can describe RMS or Linus as Saints because their influence doesn't have the totalising effect of St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Francis. Or perhaps that's just a contemporary illusion?
If RMS and Linus are Tech Saints, what does a Pagan Saint look like? was Nietzsche a Saint for those who would combat nihilism?
Every era has saints. It's harder to build the legend these days though, there's too much noise to signal
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@Leyonhjelm @Kagekokoro @laurel @sim @clayvaulin @GoodPerson @Arkana @MK2boogaloo @Intramuros_ @kakkerel @SuperSnekFriend @cully45 @7 @Dicer I'm not sure it's noise to signal as much as people have very different definitions of signal
we don't have a list of 7 virtues that are well developed and understood as part of a centralising ethic/religion, as an example of how well worked out christian theology was
to be fair it took a long time for Aquinas to be canonised so maybe it takes time and distance
but who would be doing the canonising? surely that's something only a centralised authority such as the Papacy can do
>we don't have a list of 7 virtues that are well developed and understood as part of a centralising ethic/religion, as an example of how well worked out christian theology was
We do, participation is just a lotlower
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eh, you do, not a catholic myself so it's not so clear
I do somewhat envy that philosophical/theological groundwork though, sometimes I think it makes sense to define one's philosophy in contradistinction to Catholicism, just to provide an anchor to a long heritage
@Leyonhjelm @Kagekokoro @laurel @sim @clayvaulin @GoodPerson @Arkana @MK2boogaloo @Intramuros_ @kakkerel @SuperSnekFriend @cully45 @7 @Dicer not really as I'm not Christian either
to a certain extent, belief appears a to be a question of divine grace when it's not been inherited from your environment. I can't just "believe" in Christ by an act of individual will, although even if that was the case I don't think I'd make that choice.
And I'm not saying to define one's philosophy in terms of an opposition to Catholic philosophy, rather understand how and where one differs so that one can situate your beliefs.
> I sometimes see them trying these days but Christendom is so divided it's not very efficient. Instead I just see exponential fragmentation
And it's the same all the way down, from all creeds and religions it seems.
It's interesting discussing it with you though, because for once there's a clear ontological difference between us rather than arguing about politics which is much more fluid and prone to mutual projection
@Leyonhjelm @Kagekokoro @laurel @sim @clayvaulin @GoodPerson @Arkana @MK2boogaloo @Intramuros_ @kakkerel @SuperSnekFriend @cully45 @7 @Dicer I believe in Christ in the historical and spiritual sense, even to a certain extent the idea that he was the Son of God, something which I interpret somewhat psychologically.
Although I find the later doctrines of Christianity, ideas such as heaven and hell, difficult to accept as anything other than symbolic
>some were catholic despite not believing much of the catholic doctrine because they preferred catholic mass and art.
Religion is big part of ones identity and for the majority of people it heavily depends on their social inputs.
I think that one can internalize big parts of a specific religious point of view just by being around people comprising this group.
>I believe in Christ in the historical and spiritual sense, even to a certain extent the idea that he was the Son of God, something which I interpret somewhat psychologically.
Do you think people can live without faith in a "mythical way of viewing the world"?
I also used to view religion in a more historical/symbol.
Getting into Jung was the turning point for me to start having faith and a more personal relationship with God.
I believe in religion since I was a child, but I never delve deep into it. This began maybe 2 years ago when I began to think "There should be more to this than what I see on the outside" and started to learn more about Church stuff. The result is the same with you, I think of my relationship with God on a whole new level, it's not just about going to Church and pray anymore, it's now about the way of life.
First one I read was "The Undiscovered Self" which is a short book he wrote when he was older. Very nice little book with a lot of condensed knowledge.
I found it very interesting so I read some (~25%) of his essays in "The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious". They read more like scientific studies on religion and the unconscious.
But what really did it for me was the "Red Book" were he documents his own hallucinations which he wrote in the first person, sometimes taking the role of the narrator, others of spirits.
I used to read a lot of Nietzsche back then, and I still like his work a lot, but he is a bit lacking regarding spirituality. He himself had faith but he talked a lot about his hatred of the Catholic *church* so many people take him as an atheist, militant even.
Jung went through life at a time when Nietzsche's work was held at very high esteem and so was atheism. If you were around "intellectual" cycles you had to be an atheist and like Nietzsche. But Jung had a yearning for God.
And he managed to "explain"/present faith, spirituality and religion in a very "modern" manner and in a way that it is not at odds with Nietzsche's work.
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@laurel @Kagekokoro @7 @cully45 @Arkana @MK2boogaloo @clayvaulin @kakkerel @Dicer @Intramuros_ @SuperSnekFriend @GoodPerson @sim @Leyonhjelm yeah we have a very similar philosophical development, Nietzsche and Jung big influences for me too
It helps that I'm not in love with Rome. I just see how there are problems on both extremes that are made worse by division than by not being perfect.
Any organisation made up with humans will be imperfect.
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>not really as I'm not Christian either to a certain extent, belief appears a to be a question of divine grace when it's not been inherited from your environment. I can't just "believe" in Christ by an act of individual will, although even if that was the case I don't think I'd make that choice.
I think you can get it by individually searching of it, but yes it will be harder. Today's world is not so caring towards faith, finding one would be lucky for most people. Faith is a battle which we always do every day, most wouldn't care about that anymore so they just keep the matter simple by praying and maybe sometimes reading the bible. That's not enough I say, we need to look more into morality, tradition, philosophy, history etc. I don't mean to attack simple and common people, but we need to look beyond going to church in Sunday and forgetting about your religion after that.
>And it's the same all the way down, from all creeds and religions it seems. It's interesting discussing it with you though, because for once there's a clear ontological difference between us rather than arguing about politics which is much more fluid and prone to mutual projection
There's only two notable fragmentation of the Church that I know of before the Reformation, they were Arian vs Nicean and Catholic vs Orthodox. The Church in Rome treated the matter of heresy very seriously, it's what made them able to stay intact for long time. In the case of Arius, the Church managed to won against them in the battle of philosophy and legitimacy. On the other hand, the Church managed to won against the Orthodox simply by letting them to do what they wanted (this doesn't mean they lost on the matter of philosophy and legitimacy). The Reformation is a different beast, they were supported by a massive temporal power of half the HRE, England, the Scandinavians and the Dutch. The Church at that time only had the Habsburg in Austria and Spain as their hand to enforce unity, but the French who feared the growing power of the Habsburg sought to help the Protestants in the 30 Years War and by then it was about politics. Rome was forced to do something against the Reformation, and so born the Counter-Reformation movement which succeeded in many regions throughout Europe, still they failed in restoring the absolute power of the Roman church.
Yes, religion can be quite good when discussed with the right people and the right timing.
I do understand the era it happened in well enough to understand why they felt the need to fight the integration of the church into the state though, I have to make that clear. But there's also been a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which I think is inevitable when you start throwing out core elements that functionally temper that tendency.
Rome has always had accountability problems, but the entire Church has accountability problems when local and sectarian leaders decide they don't have to answer to anyone.
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>I do understand the era it happened in well enough to understand why they felt the need to fight the integration of the church into the state though
I do too, though in my opinion the Church shouldn't have temporal authority on the first place but keep her place superior to the temporal powers. They're too focused on temporal stuff when they have holdings across Europe which is not healthy.
>Rome has always had accountability problems, but the entire Church has accountability problems when local and sectarian leaders decide they don't have to answer to anyone.
Yes. The erosion of authority has damaged the unity of the Church badly. We still need a higher authority to guide us on how to react to certain stuff while also keeping things flexible for a time being. Rome in this case is a good thing, having the leaders on Rome to decide stuff in divine matter is good, the priest only have to serve the local community without doing more work which can only bring more harm.
The problem with our secular world these days is there isn't any enforcement of a basic moral standard we all agree with, largely because we don't have one.
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I think that's where the term protestant comes from.
I don't think defining yourself as different from something is generally productive. Antifa defines itself as against fascism but generally shows they're "against" a caricature while behaving exactly like what they claim to decry. And all it does is destroy, never does it build up.
If centuries of protestants had poured their efforts into being for Christ instead of against Rome we'd live in a very different world. I sometimes see them trying these days but Christendom is so divided it's not very efficient. Instead I just see exponential fragmentation
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