Huh?!?!
Doctor, the patient Squire is in worse shape than we thought.
Here is the entire excerpt of which you speak:
A certain catholic disputant of no mean reputation so expounded this passage of the gospel as to say, that the Lord foreknew that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have afterwards departed from the faith, although they had believed the miracles done among them; and that in mercy He did not work those miracles there, because they would have been liable to severer punishment if they had forsaken the faith which they had once held, than if they had at no time held it. In which opinion of a learned and exceedingly acute man, why am I now concerned to say what is still reasonably to be asked, when even this opinion serves me for the purpose at which I aim? For if the Lord in His mercy did not do mighty works among them, since by these works they might possibly become believers, so that they might not be more severely punished when they should subsequently become unbelievers, as He foreknew that they would, -- it is sufficiently and plainly shown that no dead person is judged for those sins which He foreknew that he would have done, if in some manner he were not helped not to do them; just as Christ is said to have come to the aid of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if that opinion be true, who He would rather should not come to the faith at all, than that by a much greater wickedness they should depart from the faith, as, if they had come to it, He foresaw they would have done. Although if it be said, "Why was it not provided that they should rather believe, and this gift should be bestowed on them, that before they forsook the faith they should depart from this life"? I am ignorant what reply can be made. For he who says that to those who would forsake their faith it would have been granted, as a kindness, that they should not begin to have what, by a more serious impiety, they would subsequently forsake, sufficiently indicates that a man is not judged by that which it is foreknown he would have done ill, if by any act of kindness he may be prevented from doing it.
Therefore it is an advantage also to him who is taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding. But why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding, he perhaps might answer who was pleased in such a way to solve the above question; but, as far as concerns what I am discussing, I see it to be enough that, even according to that very opinion, men are shown not to be judged in respect of those things which they have not done, even although they may have been foreseen as certain to have done them. However, as I have said, let us think shame even to refute this opinion, whereby sins are supposed to be punished in people who die or have died because they have been foreknown as certain to do them if they had lived; lest we also may seem to have thought it to be of some importance, although we would rather repress it by argument than pass it over in silence.
Now, let's note the passages I have highlighted in bold.
FIRST, the argument that "that God foreknew that those of Tyre and Sidon would fall from the faith they embraced after they had believed the miracles" is NOT Augustine's position at all, but a position which he clearly identifies as being advanced by another disputant -- a position he goes on to criticize!! How could you possibly miss this, given that it is Augustine's very first sentence.
SECOND, Augustine offers the devastating counter-argument...
THIRD, He says that if anyone would attempt to deny Absolute Predestination by this sophistry...
...he must answer the objection which he has just raised against it in order to use the argument (and Augustine frankly thinks no reply to his objection is possible, #2 above). And so...
FOURTH, Augustine states...
...that though He would like to repress this opinion by further argument, he would feel it a shame even to bother with more refutations thereof; having dispensed of the opinion with his (unanswerable) counter-argument (#2 above), he prefers to waste no more of his time on an argument he considers so bad that he does not want foolish readers imagining it is of any logical importance.
How can you possibly attribute to Augustine an argument ("IT MAY BE OBJECTED THAT THE PEOPLE OF TYRE AND SIDON MIGHT, IF THEY HAD HEARD, HAVE BELIEVED, AND HAVE SUBSEQUENTLY LAPSED FROM THEIR FAITH") which he specifically says is A.) Not his; B.) Fatally vulnerable to the critique that even if God were worried about Tyre and Sidon falling away, He could just call them from life before they fell; and C.) is therefore such a worthless objection he is not even going to waste any more of his valuable time bothering to refute?
More to the point. Taking language merely on its face, often a sign of laziness -- though I'm sure not in your case -- can be deceiving.
Yes... I think I am beginning to see....
Well!! I'm glad we cleared that up!!
If I were to continue in the lazy practice of taking things at face value, in reading what Augustine himself actually says, I would be forced to conclude that:
1.) The modern Roman position is a complete reversal of Augustine's actual absolute-predestinarian treatment of Tyre and Sidon in On Predestination;
2.) The modern Roman position attributes an evasion of predestinarian doctrine to Augustine, which Augustine himself specifically declared in Perseverance to be the opinion of someone else entirely;
3.) The modern Roman position has never even answered the counter-argument Augustine raised which he considered to be unanswerable (and which has indeed gone unanswered);
4.) That therefore, this evasion of predestinarian doctrine which Augustine finds so easily dismissed as to be logically trivial, the modern Roman position takes up as the very foundation of her "case".
At least, if I read things at face value, that would seem to sum things up pretty well.
Hello! History teaches that Tyre and Sidon were converted within three years of the Resurrection. So it was the same generation.
Irrelevant to the case at hand on two grounds:
1.) Jesus says that they could have been shown the miracles and Repented "long ago", has God seen fit to demonstrate the miracles to them long ago. How many Tyrians do you suppose died in their sins during those long ages?
2.) Sodom was never converted, but destroyed and damned to hell. And yet, Matthew 11 says that had Sodom been granted miracles the equal of Capernaum, they would have repented and remained to that very day.
given the facts that (1) I have cited no less than five independent tracts of St. Augustine to support the Catholic position, and (2) you base your position on a single phrase (that can be explained in an alternate manner) in a single tract of Augustine, some might think that you are perhaps getting a little too big for your britches with your last point.
I am trying to take it easy on you. We have been examining your citations one at a time, and so far (On Predestination and On Perseverance) you are 0 for 2. That does not bode well for you as we continue.
I would suggest that you read a little more Augustine -- both on the issue of predestination and the related issue of human freedom. Maintaining your present reading of his theology will require you, at last, to conclude that he contradicts himself directly, and, therefore, is not credible. In any event, then, he is of no use to you because you will have to conclude either (1) that he embraces the Catholic teaching; or (2) that, owing to self-contradiction, he has no credibility.
Or that, as he matured in the Faith, Augustine deliberately retracted many of the anti-predestinarian positions of his youth... because this learned Doctor of the Church frankly recognized that any deviation from Absolute Predestination was dead wrong.
Which is, of course, the actual fact of the case.
On a somewhat-unrelated note, I would urge you to read again the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Calvinist teaching comports not in the least with our Father God as portrayed in this parable.
Patience. We are still trying to get you up to speed on your Augustine.
And it is not looking good, so far.
I'll have to ask the folks at the next Mensa meeting if they think I'm intellectually equipped to read Augustine.
I... um... how do I say this... I would not advise that. At least, I would not present them with examples of your expositions so far.
Egads.
But in the meantime, I'm fairly confident that I'm at least intellectually equipped to read more than one work of St. Augustine.
But... you've just horribly botched two in a row... not good.
And at least intellectually equipped to know that one cannot understand the entirety of a theologian's teaching by restricting myself to that single work.
Especially if you can't even read that single work correctly.
As for poor Calvin, though the great St. Robert Bellarmine refuted Calvin and his unholy theories point by point, it really takes no great intellect to do so. After all, a child, in the simplicity of his or her faith in a Father God, knows instinctively that poor Calvin could not have been more wrong.
Poor Calvin will have to wait. Right now, even the "simplest child" would be aghast at your string of exegetical mishaps in consideration of just two of Augustine's works.
This is the problem which orthodox Protestants face. Rome thinks that we do not sufficiently respect the Patristics; meanwhile, we sometimes wonder if Rome can even manage to read them.
Do you begin to understand why this is so frustrating to us?
Quoting patristics, not scripture; must remember to down-grade the uppercases. Mea Culpa.
In my post #1038, I said:
The funny thing is, the Protestants agreed with Augustine on the most important stuff. Sixteenth century Rome, on the other hand, actually rejected Augustine on the very point which Luther correctly identified as the pivotal issue of the Reformation.Squire immediately protested in his #1039 with a cute display of what I would call only a Romanist scholar's general familiarity with Augustine. I responded in #1041 that Squire was still over his head in the discussion. My point was that all Squire really knows about Augustine's position is ROME'S PARTY LINE CONCERNING AUGUSTINE--which is, to put it bluntly, an outright LIE.You're in this over your head for the time being. You need to come up to speed on the topic.
I gave Squire fair warning about this, so when Squire protested again in his #1042, I knew he was a goat headed for the slaughter in this debate. Unlike Squire, I did already know Augustine's position. Unlike Squire, who presupposes that the Church of Rome is honest, I knew that we could quickly prove that the Church of Rome was lying in the sixteenth century and has continued lying to this very day.
The absolute, double predestinarian position of the Reformers, which position the RCs loathed in the sixteenth century and still loathe to this very day, was AUGUSTINE'S POSITION. And when you grasp Augustine's Scriptural understanding of the doctrine of reprobation--specifically, predestination to hell!--the whole mess is almost hilarious.
My point here is that Luther and Calvin were correct. The Church of Rome really is apostate. This is seen in Rome's lying refusal to admit what Augustine clearly asserted. And the folks who can't even admit what the Blessed Augustine clearly taught would, according to a logical application of Augustine's position, certainly appear to be reprobate.
Notice that this debate necessarily gets pretty rough--fast! This thread is not for the faint-hearted. For example, we Reformed theologians will cheerfully denounce Bouyer's teachings in the lead article on this thread as smarmy theological garbage. Gosh, we regard Bouyer as a pagan sophist, not a Christian theologian. Unless and until he repents--which is not likely, under the circumstances of his depraved pride in RCism--we regard him as a vessel of wrath fitted for destruction (Romans 9).
My #1043--which I respectfully submit is probably worth reading if you are a lurker on this thread--reiterated my overall warning to Squire concerning his ignorance of Augustine's double-predestinarian teaching and then handed off the argument to OrthodoxPresbyterian. I knew OP would crush Squire pretty quickly. Again, the reason why I knew this is because Augustine really was on the side of Luther and Calvin in this astonishingly important doctrine of the Reformation. And I knew that this is not hard to demonstrate.
OrthodoxPresbyterian's #1051 to me, concerning my request that he pick up the discussion, is remarkable for its frankness in warning Squire:
He's rather too presumptuous for my tastes. You're asking me to cast my exegetical pearls before someone who is acting swinish. My temptation is simply to shake my sandals and move on. (My time is valuable too)I am content to answer his arguments as you request, but only if he agrees to meet me in a spirit of charity. That does not mean that I desire for him to emasculate his own arguments -- that is what RC's typically expect of Protestants; to forego any truly forthright condemnation of Roman error on grounds that such forthrightness is "Catholic-bashing". Protestants have little patience for such ecumenical pap; I would gladly see "squire" present his arguments as strongly and adamantly as he is able. After all, I would do the same.
But if he intends to be presumptuous and snide, I am not going to waste my time.
I will "tease" Squire with this: if you meet me in exegetical battle, your arguments will be crushed. You will see them taken apart and cast down before your eyes. Of this, I have not even an inkling of doubt.
But I'll not throw pearls into the slop.
FIRST, the argument that "that God foreknew that those of Tyre and Sidon would fall from the faith they embraced after they had believed the miracles" is NOT Augustine's position at all, but a position which he clearly identifies as being advanced by another disputant -- a position he goes on to criticize!! How could you possibly miss this, given that it is Augustine's very first sentence.
I'm actually somewhat embarrassed that, in my zeal, I tried to translate this passage from the Latin, and made an insignificant error. I put into his mouth the words of another whom he is citing approvingly -- whose position he is implicitly adopting.
But it seems that reading it in an English translation (and, let's remember, every translation is an interpretation), OP made a much more serious blunder.
If you will re-read this passage, Augustine is not criticizing the position of the disputant who argues that miracles were withheld from Tyre and Sidon lest they believe and therefore offend God later by abandoning the Faith. He is actually using that very theory (i.e., "that no dead person is judged for those sins which He foreknew that he would have done, if in some manner he were not helped not to do them") to argue against another theory -- the theory that God punishes souls for uncommitted but foreseen sins. That theory is a very different matter -- and that is the theory that he thinks "shame even to refute."
Having corrected your significant misreading of this passage, the remainder of your preening, self-aggrandizing strophes blow away in the wind like so much intellectual flatulence. No offense.
Why, oh why, the persistence of this self-misleading tendency among the Protestants to excise (or, better, "rip") texts out of context in breathtaking disrespect for their true meaning. This is something that must be ingrained in their youth -- and probably results from being taught to treat Holy Scripture in the same manner.
How can you possibly attribute to Augustine an argument ("IT MAY BE OBJECTED THAT THE PEOPLE OF TYRE AND SIDON MIGHT, IF THEY HAD HEARD, HAVE BELIEVED, AND HAVE SUBSEQUENTLY LAPSED FROM THEIR FAITH") which he specifically says is A.) Not his; B.) Fatally vulnerable to the critique that even if God were worried about Tyre and Sidon falling away, He could just call them from life before they fell; and C.) is therefore such a worthless objection he is not even going to waste any more of his valuable time bothering to refute?
As explained above, you have completely misapprehended this passage. But let's further examine the crux of this matter -- the Calvinist teaching on divine "reprobation without demerit," and the Calvinists' claim that St. Augustine supports this teaching.
One endorsing the Calvinist claim would have to suppose that Augustine developed his doctrine in absolute contradiction of at least six of his own writings on the subject:(1) "On Correction and Grace," 13, Para. 42; (2) "On Merits and Remission of Sins" 2, Para. 17-26; (3) "Against Felix the Manichean," 2, Para. 8; (4) "On 88 Diff. Ques.," 68, Para 4; (5) "Commentary on the Gospel of St. John," 53, Para. 6; and (6) "On Instructing the Ignorant," 52.
One must then suppose that Augustine also developed this "doctrine" in complete contradiction of all of the Greek Fathers who addressed (and rejected) the teaching -- St. John Damascene, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nazianus, and Theodoret.
One must further suppose that St. Augustine decided to place himself also in opposition to all the Latin Fathers who had decided against this "doctrine" -- St. Ambrose, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and St. Jerome.
Finally (and perhaps most tellingly), one would have to claim that St. Augustine's best and most devoted pupil, St. Prosper of Acquitaine, the great defender of Augustinian theology, just up and contradicted his master on this highly salient point. For St. Prosper, like the Greek and Latin Fathers, wholly rejects this notion of reprobation without demerit. In "Responses to Objections of the Gauls," 3, St. Prosper writes, "for this reason they were not predestined, because they were foreseen as going to be such as a result of voluntary transgression...therefore, just as good works are to be attributed to God who inspires them, so evil works are to be attributed to those who sin." And he further states at 7, Para. 85, "He foresaw that they would fall by their very own will, and for this reason He did not separate them from the sons of perdition by predestination. In "Responses to the objections of the Vincentians," 12, Proper states, "because they were foreseen as going to fall, they were not predestined."
Personally, I have always been fascinated by the way Calvinists fixate on out-of-context quotations from Augustine -- usually over-the-top, imprecise statements made in heat of debate with the Pelagians -- like so many moths to a flame. But, of course, they cannot get too close to the flame, lest they be burned. So they content themselves with their isolated quotations, but generally ignore the full body of his teaching, particularly on the issues of human freedom, the Real Presence, Petrine Primacy, and the indispensable role of the Holy Virgin in God's salvific plan.
Hello! History teaches that Tyre and Sidon were converted within three years of the Resurrection. So it was the same generation. Irrelevant to the case at hand on two grounds.
This is by no means the first time that you claim "irrelevance" on an issue on which you have been pinned. Suffice it to say that whether or not it was the same generation was quite relevant to you in a prior post. As to your two retorts, we don't know how long "long ago" was when Our Lord used the term. When someone says, "such-and-such would have happened long ago if..." the phrase "long ago" is almost always used as an emphatic figure of speech, and, moreover, in such cases time itself is not necessarily even being considered. As to why Sodom was not converted, I'm sure St. Augustine would refer to the Pauline hymn on the unfathomable depths of the Divine Mystery.
I am trying to take it easy on you. We have been examining your citations one at a time, and so far (On Predestination and On Perseverance) you are 0 for 2. That does not bode well for you as we continue.
Thanks for the kind thoughts, but meekness begins at home. I'm thinking you should learn to relax -- that might help you better understand what you read.
Or that, as he matured in the Faith, Augustine deliberately retracted many of the anti-predestinarian positions of his youth... because this learned Doctor of the Church frankly recognized that any deviation from Absolute Predestination was dead wrong.
As I demonstrate above, we know where Augustine stood not only through his own writings, but also through the writings of his most devoted pupil, St. Prosper. And St. Prosper does not endorse reprobation without demerits.
As an aside, OP's little soliloquy immediately above is interesting for an entirely different reason. It is a fine example of the curious Protestant habit of using Catholic terminology as some sort of "window dressing" on Protestant faith and practice. I suppose the point is to give some ersatz credibility to their relatively new-on-the-scene doctrinal innovations. The term "Doctor of the Church," of course, is a title of tremendous honor bestowed by the pope on souls whose writings contributed much to the fuller understanding of the Faith.
But... you've just horribly botched two in a row... not good....Especially if you can't even read that single work correctly.... Poor Calvin will have to wait. Right now, even the "simplest child" would be aghast at your string of exegetical mishaps in consideration of just two of Augustine's works. This is the problem which orthodox Protestants face. Rome thinks that we do not sufficiently respect the Patristics; meanwhile, we sometimes wonder if Rome can even manage to read them.
Rich stuff. But, as I have demonstrated above, it is you who misread the passage. I am going to assume that you were not wearing your glasses. Remember -- wearing glasses when you read is essential for the Orthodox Presbyopian.
I will not further publicly humiliate you on this issue. If you wish to continue to publicly humiliate yourself, you are, of course, free to do so.
I gave Squire fair warning about this, so when Squire protested again in his #1042, I knew he was a goat headed for the slaughter in this debate....
The proletarian triumphalism of certain strains of American Protestantism is not least among its unattractive characteristics. But I think you spoke too soon -- and, I will assume, before you read what OP actually wrote.
Since I am the fellow who first informed Squire that he didn't understand Augustine, I think I ought to give a broad outline of our overall exchange with Squire. I believe that this will be important for lurkers who care enough about the overall conflict between Protestants and RCs to go back and re-trace what was said....Squire immediately protested in his #1039 with a cute display of what I would call only a Romanist scholar's general familiarity with Augustine. I responded in #1041 that Squire was still over his head in the discussion. My point was that all Squire really knows about Augustine's position is ROME'S PARTY LINE CONCERNING AUGUSTINE--which is, to put it bluntly, an outright LIE....Unlike Squire, I did already know Augustine's position. Unlike Squire, who presupposes that the Church of Rome is honest, I knew that we could quickly prove that the Church of Rome was lying in the sixteenth century and has continued lying to this very day....My #1043--which I respectfully submit is probably worth reading if you are a lurker on this thread--reiterated my overall warning to Squire concerning his ignorance of Augustine's double-predestinarian teaching and then handed off the argument to OrthodoxPresbyterian. I knew OP would crush Squire pretty quickly.
Quick question -- do you suffer hematochezia when you unload this rubbish? As demonstrated above, you know neither Augustine, nor the Greek Fathers, nor the Latin Fathers, nor the students actually taught by Augustine.
The absolute, double predestinarian position of the Reformers, which position the RCs loathed in the sixteenth century and still loathe to this very day, was AUGUSTINE'S POSITION. And when you grasp Augustine's Scriptural understanding of the doctrine of reprobation--specifically, predestination to hell!--the whole mess is almost hilarious.
What is actually (not "almost") hilarious is how you cling to this fantasy that Augustine supports you when six of his major works (cited above) reject the idea of reprobation without demerit, all of the Greek Fathers who address the issue reject it, all of the Latin Fathers who address the issue reject it, and the great "defender of Augustine," St. Prosper rejects it.
And, oh yes, almost all Protestants reject it. Among the great Protestant theologians, we've already noted Guerillat's position against Calvin. But we also have Cunningham, Dorner, Harnack, and Barth, who cannot even find in the Scripture cited by Calvin any support for this teaching.
Again, the reason why I knew this [that "OP would crush Squire"] is because Augustine really was on the side of Luther and Calvin in this astonishingly important doctrine of the Reformation. And I knew that this is not hard to demonstrate.
Consistency is usually a plus in life, as long as one is not consistently wrong. Please see above -- you are having quite a hard time demonstrating your position.
As I said above, this is a pretty fierce controversy. But it is by no means as fierce as the Reformation itself was. My goodness, untold numbers of Protestants were murdered by Rome. The modern RC's refusal to face that murderous fact reminds me of the anti-semitic freaks who claim that the holocaust of WWII didn't really happen.
I'm assuming that you have not studied European history in depth, or, if you have, that you did not write the above statement with a straight face. Many, many people died at the hands of both Protestant and Catholic during and after the so-called Reformation. The formally canonized English martyrs under Henry VIII, Edward VII, "Queen" Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I number in the hundreds. But those who were actually martyred at Protestant hands number in the thousands. And what of those secular martyrs, the tens of thousands of "The Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants," whom Luther offered up in sacrifice to curry princeling favor?
One of the more interesting statements of the rabidly anti-Catholic historian Edmund Gibbon is that all the auto-da-fe's of Spain [the number of which English historians habitually obscenely exaggerate] do not collectively enrage him as much as Calvin's judicial murder of Servetus. I think Gibbon traces his disgust of Calvin to the manner in which Calvin cloaked himself in pharisaical, doctrinal robes in the matter, when, in fact, he wanted Servetus dead because Servetus had bested him in a debate. And then, of course, the mendacious way in which Calvin tried to later deflect his responsibility in the matter and claim that he had sought mercy for the man. Outrageous.
No one's hands are clean in this business. The only real difference is that the Catholic Church, in the persons of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II [the Great], has acknowledged the sins of Catholics in this matter and asked forgiveness.
Under the circumstances of what we Protestants do know and what today's RCs do not know, we cannot help but maintain this to our FReeper friends. Therefore, insinuating that we are Talibans for being so bold as to take a stand on a terribly important matter--as Squire did insinuate in his #1034--is just an example of the malevolent, truth-hating spirit of the RCs on our forum.
Actually, my reference to the Tora Bora caves was not to compare you to the Taliban per se. It was to suggest that your silence (and the silence of others) in the face of several of your friends' pleas for help was, perhaps, a little cowardly. The reference had nothing to do with religious practices. Don't be so touchy.
My take on this debate, the take of any honest lurker, is that OrthodoxPresbyterian has made good on his promise to crush Squire in the argument.
Um...that was your take on the debate before it even began.
The Church of Rome, which Squire has defended doggedly and with as much skill as a former lawyer could muster, is found guilty of the most flagrant of perjuries concerning the doctrine of predestination and specifically concerning Augustine's teachings concerning the absoluteness of God's predestination.
"My take" on this statement is that you indict yourself with this kind of twaddle. Pun intended.
The pompous defenders of the Papacy scoffed at Calvin and Luther for not understanding Augustine. But Calvin and Luther did understand Augustine, just as OrthodoxPresbyterian and I understand Augustine!)
As demonstrated above, you and OP misunderstand Augustine just as Luther and Calvin misunderstood. Call it tradition with a lower-case "t."
As for pompous, no papal bull I've ever read can touch the Institutes on the big ole "P" meter.
As an aside, I will point out to lurkers that Squire is quite bright (especially for someone who is now in medical school). No question about it.
Thanks, bro!
But when OrthodoxPresbyterian charged that Squire is intellectually incompetent to understand Augustine or the Bible, OP was merely making a spiritual observation.
Oh, okay.
Sin is intellectually incapacitating in ways which proud sinners will not face squarely. And that refusal to face reality squarely is the incapacitation itself.
Indeed.
Maybe Squire will come up to speed--and admit that he has been on the wrong side the whole time. Then again, maybe he won't. How about the rest of my FReeper friends?
What did Will Durant say about Calvin, something like, "unforgettable is the stain his teaching placed on the human consciousness." The unspeakable notion of reprobation without demerit is something that I will never endorse. But there's hope for you! The gentle St. Francis de Sales managed to re-convert to the Faith both the Chablais and most of Geneva. His has a way with the Calvinist mind, I think. For you, doc (and OP), I prescribe a healthy dose of his Introduction to the Devout Life. It's a true classic, and will help you better understand the notion of divine filiation. Also terrific (better?) on this issue is St. Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul. By the way, she's our latest "Doctor of the Church."
Time to hit the sack. It's gonna be a bad week on Gyn Onc. Time is increasingly short owing to wards responsibilities, an upcoming presentation, and a looming heinous OB/Gyn test. I'll check back when I can. It would also be helpful to me if y'all's future posts were a little more "economical." More substance, less bloviation. OK?