San Giustino Marire - A page of topical! In a time when you hosanna Hypatia, the "secular saint" massacred by "sinister thugs hired by the Catholic Bishop of Alexandria" (so goes the legend black
well marked by the scholar Louis
Cupertino interview granted Giovanna Canzano ), it is worth remembering as we read in the lay philosopher
Justin (100 - 167 AD) killed in hatred of the Catholic faith by "enlightened saints and" pagans
1. Our doctrine thus seems to be more glorious than the every human doctrine, because for us it is expressed total Logos, Christ appeared to us in body, mind, soul.
2. In fact everything correctly enunciated slowly and found the philosophers and legislators, in their research and is the result of speculation, thanks to a part of Logos.
3. But since they did not know the Logos in its entirety, which is Christ, they often are contradicted. "(Justin, Apologia II, X). This statement
far from being a sign of "obscurantism", as one might argue, is actually the line that establishes the Catholic faith in the ability of human reason to draw a full understanding of reality in its entirety. Justin is the first one including the relevance of the Christian for the fulfillment of meaning man and his "love of wisdom."
Justin is a philosopher as a Christian and this is the lecture taken by Pope Benedict XVI, who in these times of dark light (the culture of death in the words of Pope John Paul II) still raises the banner of reason, however, devoid of all "isms" fruit of the Enlightenment and its claims of reducing reality to what is thought.
E 'the Logos, making them part of the destiny of man, opens the human reason in the right direction under-stand the real. Hence the development of all the knowledge that over the centuries has made the Catholic Church and her children a beacon of civilization for all peoples (Light of the nations), beginning with the peoples "barbarians" who, breaking and destroying the Roman Empire, would have erased all traces of knowing "Western" and which, thanks to the Catholic Church, were able to learn the newness of Christian life and the superior dignity of every human being also the weakest because it should be recalled immediately, the philosophy of "Christianized" is no longer just the love of wisdom but the wisdom of Love!
How many wrongs and obvious contradiction with the Gospel have had the churchmen, their merits for the benefit of all humanity is infinitely greater. Thus the claim GK Chesterton: "
Become a Catholic does not mean stop thinking, but learn to do ." Far from being a provocation rather than an observation (the Catholic Church, where all truths come together, Ed Lindau , ed. February 2010, pp. 117, with a foreword by Marco Sermarini, p.79). Even
whole diatribe internal to Christianity and its divisions should be reconsidered peacefully. Today more than ever need to retrieve the catholic unity of Christians because the present moment launches unavoidable challenges to those who still believe that man is an "animal rationale
.
Chesterton continues: "
What we call free speech is not appreciated because it is free, but because it is freedom from thought: it is lack of free thought "(ibid. p.80).
Chesterton's statement is made in the context of the subtle play of objections that rages around him who will be Catholic.
The reality, as he observes, is that this "lack of free thought" the Catholic Church wants to reduce one of the many Christian sects, and consequently put all religions on an equal footing, "Do you believe all the same, in an indifferent cosmos" . Nothing could be more false and absurd in this attempt. The analysis carries Chesterton, in fact, points out that this attempt is a serious philosophical error. Only the Catholic Church can properly say "Ecclesia", the Christian denominations that have come off if they are not on its own floor, "calling the recovery demolish a ship because the ship does not turn into one of its beams" (ibid. p. 70 ).
The Protestant denominations are so many ideas and absolutized Catholic fragmented and therefore made sterile. "The vital principle
Protestant denominations, it is not a principle of death, consists of what they have preserved of Catholic Christianity, Catholic Christianity and the variations of Protestantism have always come back for revitalization. I know that statement seems questionable, but it's true. (...) Another way of looking at things is to say that we have come to regard all these historical figures as characters of Catholic history, although I'm not Catholic. And in a sense, in that sense of history and theology, never cease to be Catholic. Are not people who have created something entirely new, until outside the boundaries of reason and create a nightmare more or less meaningless. But nightmares do not last, and most of these people even now is in a recovery phase. Protestants are Catholics who have made a mistake: this is what we really mean by saying that they are Christians. In some cases, their was a big mistake, but they are rare times when they carried out a mistake of their own. So the Calvinist is a Catholic obsessed Catholic sovereignty of God But when construed as meaning that God desires the damnation of certain people, we can say without fear of exaggeration that is a Catholic morbid. In fact, a Catholic patient, and the disease left to itself, leading to death or madness. The disease, however, did not last long and is now virtually disappeared. But every time the Calvinist takes a step back for humanity, is reverting to Catholicism. (...)
For us, therefore, from this moment onwards you can not see the Quaker as a figure the dawn of a new Quaker history or the Calvinist as the founder of a new Calvinistic world. It 'absolutely clear that they are only characters in our Catholic history, which were limited, however, to cause a lot' of trouble trying to do something that we did best and that they actually never did. Now some may assume that such a thing is valid for seven old as Calvinism and Quakerism, but not for modern movements such as socialism or spiritualism. However they are wrong, the inclusive nature of the Church or continental applies as much to modern manias that the old religious manias, and therefore all the materials, or spiritualists, that the Puritans. In all we find a dogma Catholic who suffers the same fate at the beginning of the movement's followers for granted, then exaggerate it to bribe him, then turned against him and reject him as an error, going back a few steps on the way home. And this is almost always the hallmark of such a heretic: the fact that, while protesting furiously any other dogma of Catholicism, there never will dream of questioning his favorite Catholic dogma and does not even seem to realize that one could argue. "(pp. 72 -74).
witty and prophetically Chesterton observes that these absolutizations of Catholic truth precisely because of their absolute good turn or their opposite, or in a nightmare.
"
to Calvinism had never occurred to me that someone could have used his freedom to deny or limit the divine omnipotence, or the Quaker that anyone could challenge the supremacy of simplicity. The socialist is in the same situation. Bolshevism, and every variant of theoretical based on fraternity, is founded on a deeply mystical Catholic dogma, namely the equality of men. The Communists link all human equality, just like all Calvinists pointed omnipotence of God Ride on this dogma until exhausted just like the others did with theirs, turning the horse into a nightmare. But they never seem to think that someone may not believe in the mystical Catholic dogma of equality of men. Yet many, even among Christians, are so heretical to doubt it. In an attempt to put into practice the socialist end up in a mess: compromise with their ideals, they modify their teaching and so, as the Quakers and Calvinists after their extravagant sums, are found to have covered a day's march more to Rome. "(p. 76).
In this experience of conversion of Chesterton is similar to that of Justin:
"
After seeing the world in this way, that is, once you were able to distinguish some ideas in equilibrium and others that have lost the balance, the convert does not address the hardships that could reasonably have feared before that silent but stunning revolution. Do not panic if they say that spiritualism in Christian Science or something. He knows that there is something in all. But is moved by the extraordinary fact of finding something in everything. It has the absolute certainty that those others will try the same place, as soon cease to settle for just anything and try everything. In this sense, they will care a lot less time when they thought they were the only ones able to enter into communication with the higher mysteries, and of course to send common to forty-eight cards. (...) He does not envy the Bolshevik revolution more than envy the beaver dam, because he knows that his civilization is able to work much more complicated and less monotonous. But you think of its civilization and its religion, and not just himself. There is nothing haughty in his attitude because he knows that he only explored the surface of the manor in which spiritual now stands freely. In other words, the convert not abandon the search at all and even adventure. Do not think you know everything, or has lost interest in what we do not know. But experience has taught him that almost everything is located somewhere within that part of the manor, and that many do not find out almost anything. Since the castle is not only a well-tended garden or a farm well-organized within its borders and hunting and fishing abound, as they say, is to do a good haul. "(p. 78-79).
Other than dogmatic slumber of Hegelian memory! The Catholic convert has for the authentic taste of real adventure, "
This is the meaning of [the conversion ed] like a paralysis cure does not mean refusing to move, but learn to do it. For the first time a Catholic convert has a solid basis for clear thinking and strong. He was able to determine for the first Once the truth of any matter. Considering how the world goes, especially now, are the others - the pagans and heretics - that seem to have every virtue except that of a coherent thought. "(pp. 79-80).
interesting is the observation of how the other captures the movement of conversion and convert the situation: "Those who are outside
are there and see, or think they see, the convert entering with bowed head in a kind small temple in their belief that it is equipped internally as a prison, if not as a genuine own torture chamber. But only they know for a fact that has gone through a door. Ignore that entered the dark interior, but instead came out in full light. In fact, the outsider, in the literal sense of who's beautiful outside, it is converted. "(p. 80 ff.)
So all of those seven ancient or modern, be they religious or secular, who profess to 'be a
entire cosmos or a scheme of all things "(p.81). In which each of them "
claims to have the sky as a dome or in the heavens as a decoration " (ibid.), not subject to any appeal to the converted because "
to convert all these cosmic systems seem much more small and even the simplest of the wide and balanced universe in which they live. "(p.81). To clarify the concept
Chesterton uses the example of agnosticism, Buddhism and theosophy el'umanitarismo. As for Theosophy says: "
There is another system that is called Theosophy and Buddhism, but he [the convert ed] knows from experience that is just the same kind of wheel boring [agnosticism ed], used for things spiritual rather than material. Because in his world [the Catholic Church ed] is free to do anything, even to go to hell, does not see why it should bind to the wheel of a simple fate. "(p. 81 f.)
Chesterton concludes: "'
Where to go now, if I left the Catholic Church?" Of course by any of these small sects social, capable of expressing only one idea at a time because that idea happens to be fashionable at the time. The best I could hope for would be to get away in the woods and become, not
a pantheist (since this is also an annoying limitation), but rather a pagan inclined to cry out that some particular mountain peak or flowering fruit tree is sacred and must be revered. That at least would start all over again, but eventually brought me back to the same problem. If it was reasonable to have a sacred tree, was not unreasonable to have a crucifix, sacred, and if the gods could be found on a peak, as may reasonably be under a spire. Those looking for a new religion, sooner or later finds it, and why should I be unhappy with what I found? Especially when, as I said at the beginning of this essay, is the only ancient religion that seem to be new. "(P. 82).
In a speech to the Chesterton real alternative to Christianity, paganism is not the particular tendencies of Christianity that they are religious or secular. But as rightly pointed out this difficult return appears to be somewhat sterile "
Paganism is better than pantheism, for paganism is free to imagine divinity, while pantheism is forced to pretend, by moralizing, that all things are equally divine. But I can not imagine a deity quite divine. If I give the impression of knowing that difficult return through the woods, it is because I believe I have already come symbolically. As I tried to confess without undue egotism, I think I'm the kind of man who comes to Christ after leaving Pan and Dionysus, and not having been a follower of Luther or Laud "" (p. 83). Chesterton
For the conversion, that is true from paganism to Christianity, the rest is returned to the vast continent that is what the Catholic Church and his thinking.
"
The conversion of pay that I understand is that not one of the puritanical, and that ancient conversion is based on the entire world we know. It is a transformation far more vast and tremendous than anything that for many years now, at least in England and America, has been cause for dispute between the seven or doctrinal divisions. At the height of that ancient empire [Roman ed] international experience and [the Ecclesia ed], humanity had a vision. Others do not he's had, except for those disputes on that one vision. Paganism was the largest of the world there was, but Christianity is even more large: compared to it, everything else seems small. "(p. 83). With all due respect
of Odifreddi and Hack.
