Posted on 07/25/2010 1:37:12 PM PDT by betty boop
TWO REVOLUTIONS, TWO VIEWS OF MAN
By Jean F. Drew
As every American schoolchild has been taught, in Western history there were two great sociopolitical revolutions that took place near the end of the eighteenth century: The American Revolution of 1775; and the French, of 1789. Children are taught that both revolutions were fought because of human rights in some way; thus bloody warfare possibly could be justified, condoned so long as the blood and treasure were shed to protect the “rights of man.” The American schoolchild is assured that the American and French revolutions were both devoted to the expansion of human rights and thus were equally noble revolutions. Moreover, it is widely believed that the French Revolution was an evolution from the American one.
Rather than simply accept these ideas uncritically, comparison and contrast of the two revolutions can shed some light on what turns out to be their stark differences — as to inceptions, ostensible goals, foundational ideology, and respective outcomes.
Inceptions
There is a famous Pythagorean maxim (c. sixth century B.C.): “The beginning is the half of the whole.” That is to say, inception events have a way of profoundly influencing the course of events that follow from them; and so their analysis can give insight into the character of their development in time, and even of the motivations they configure. Less obviously, an inception event is itself the culmination of a train of social, political, and cultural development that finally “erupts,” or takes evident shape, as a concrete beginning, or precipitating event of what follows. At that point, a situation of no return has been reached: “The fat is in the fire.” There is no turning back….
And so, let us take a look at the beginnings of two revolutions:
The American:
“In London George III and his cabinet, their confidence bolstered by their huge majority in Parliament, moved toward a confrontation with the Americans. On February 2, 1775, [Prime Minister Frederick, Lord] North introduced a motion to declare the province of Massachusetts in a state of rebellion and asked the King to take steps to support the sovereignty of England. The opposition, led by Edmund Burke, decried this move as a declaration of war. But the measure passed by a majority of three to one. George III was immensely pleased….”
The King decided to send some 1,000 reinforcements to Boston, far short of the number that Governor General Thomas Gage had wanted.
“…The King and his ministers still refused to believe Gage’s assessment of the odds he faced…. Colonel James Grant — who had served in America, at one point in the same army with George Washington [in the French and Indian Wars] — declared he was certain the Americans ‘would never dare to face an English army.’… In this spirit the King … ordered Lord Dartmouth to draft a letter telling Gage that it was time to act.”
Gage promptly acted. Thanks to his spies, he knew that the Colonials were accumulating military stores at Concord, including large quantities of gunpowder. So Gage decided that a swift march on Concord to seize the powder as well as the fourteen cannon said to be in the town “would have a crippling, even demoralizing impact on the Provincial Congress’s plans to form an Army of Observation to pen the British inside Boston.”
From this decision ensued, on April 19, 1775, the opening shot — “the shot heard ’round the world” — of the American Revolutionary War, at North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts at about 8 o’clock in the morning.
Although the Colonials already knew the British were coming to Concord and Lexington sooner or later, and for what purpose, and that the incursion would come by a night march (rare in that day) — the Americans proved early to be remarkably effective spies — what they did not know was the specific date, or whether the British forces would be moving by land — over Boston Neck — or by sea — in longboats across the Back Bay. Hence the famous signal of “one if by land, two if by sea” posted at the Old North Church, wherein observers were keeping an eye on British troop movements.
It turned out to be “two”: The British forces, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were subsequently debarked at Cambridge across the Charles River, from longboats attached to H.M.S. Somerset then standing guard over the Boston Harbor ferryway. This was a force of some 700 men composed of light infantrymen and “fearsome” grenadiers. From thence the body proceeded overland, on a much shorter march than would have been the case had they approached Concord via Boston Neck. The route from Cambridge to Concord led straight through the heart of the neighboring town of Lexington.
As soon as the news came that the British were moving, Paul Revere set upon his famous midnight ride “on a fast mare,” traveling west at high speed to warn the people of Concord and the surrounding towns that the British were coming. Samuel Prescott and William Dawes likewise fanned out on horseback, spreading the alert to all within earshot.
The folks at Concord, having thus been warned, working feverishly overnight, managed to remove all the military stores to safe locations. The locals felt confident they could handle the threat: After all, the town had 600 drilled and trained Minutemen on spot, and there were some 6,000 other Minutemen and Militia — a body composed of all able-bodied men between the ages of 15 and 60 — within fairly easy reach of Concord town who were already pledged to come to her aid in the event of the outbreak of actual hostilities.
The people of Concord evidently figured a show of force would suffice to deter the British officers from doing anything rash. But really what they were relying on was their expectation — based on their understanding of the so-far prevailing rules of engagement, frequently tested — that British troops would never open fire on their fellow citizens — i.e., the Colonials themselves, who were British subjects also — unless they were fired upon first. And the Americans did not intend to fire first.
In this assessment of the situation on the ground, they were sadly mistaken. In the approach to Concord, the Brits had provoked a bloody engagement at Lexington Green in which “the British light infantry unquestionably fired the first volleys, killing eight men and wounding ten.” Then the British forces continued their march into Concord, to secure the bridges of the town: The British commander Smith had detached four squadrons to visit a prominent local farm to see whether contraband might be stashed there; and feared his troops could not safely return if the North Bridge were under the control of the Colonials. In defense of the bridge, the Brits again fired first. For a moment, the Americans could not believe this was happening. “‘Goddamn it,’ one man shouted, ‘They are firing ball!’” Then their commander, Major Buttrick, “whirled and shouted, ‘Fire fellow soldiers, for God’s sake fire.’” The Americans sustained six casualties at North Bridge, all fatal. On the British side, “Two privates were killed and a sergeant, four privates and four officers were wounded.”
Then the Brits cut their losses and in disorderly retreat high-tailed it back to the security of their barracks in Boston — empty-handed. Their mission was a failure: They had not found, let alone confiscated, any military stores.
But the American Revolutionary War was officially ON….
* * * * * * *
The French:
“History will record, that on the morning of the 6th of October 1789, the king and queen of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dismay, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged security of public faith, to indulge nature in a few hours of respite, and troubled melancholy repose. From this sleep the queen was first startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, who cried out to her, to save herself by flight — that this was the last proof of fidelity he could give — that they were upon him, and he was dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his blood, rushed into the chamber of the queen, and pierced with an hundred strokes of bayonets and poniards the bed, from whence this persecuted woman had just time to fly almost half naked, and through ways unknown to the murderers had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a king and husband, not secure of his own life for a moment.
“This king … and this queen, and their infant children (who once would have been the pride and hope of a great and generous people) were then forced to abandon the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the world, which they left swimming in blood, polluted by massacre, and strewed with scattered limbs and mutilated carcasses. Thence they were conducted into the capital of their kingdom. Two had been selected from the unprovoked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter which was made of the gentlemen of birth and family who composed the king’s bodyguard. These two gentlemen, with all the parade of an execution of justice, were cruelly and publicly dragged to the block, and beheaded…. Their heads were stuck upon spears, and led the procession; whilst the royal captives who followed in the train were slowly moved along, amidst the horrid yells, and shrilling screams, and frantic dances, and infamous contumelies, and all the unutterable abominations of the furies of hell…. After they had been made to taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve miles protracted to six hours, they were, under a guard composed of those very soldiers who had thus conducted them through this famous triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of Paris, now converted into a Bastile for kings….”
And thus, the French Revolutionary War was officially ON….
On the question of origins — beginnings, inceptions, precipitating events — it would appear that the American and French Revolutions do not seem to resemble one another very much. It’s difficult to draw a common understanding of what human rights might be on the basis of such disparate evidence.
On the one hand, it’s possible to see that perhaps human rights had something to do with the defense of Concord: People coming together to protect and defend their lives, liberty, and property against the tyranny of George III, who then was most corruptly usurping the ancient “rights of Englishmen” not only in America, but also back in the home isles — as the Colonials were very well aware.
People today do not appreciate how close was the tie with the “mother country” at the time, through the printed word: In that day, the London presses were offloading their publications directly onto American ships bound for Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston, as soon as the ink was dry. It was from the London press that the Colonials learned of the usurpations of individual liberty that good King George was perpetrating at home, not to mention in their own backyard. They wanted no part of it.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to see what human right is implicated in the inception event of the French Revolution — unless it be the right to commit regicide. Or maybe the right to agitate and deploy mobs as instruments of social and political change….
In the end, “Citizen Louis Capet,” formerly known as King Louis XVI of France, was tried and convicted of treason by the National Convention and was guillotined on 21 January 1793 — the only French king in history to fall victim to regicide. His queen, Marie Antoinette, was also tried and convicted of treason: She was executed by guillotine on 16 October 1793, nine months after her husband.
Ostensible Goals
It seems clear that the Americans were not seeking to kill the king, or to overthrow the traditions of the British constitutional monarchy. Rather, they were seeking a complete, formal separation from it — because they were motivated by the conviction that their historic liberties were being systematically violated by George III.
By 1775, the Americans already had a tradition of local or self-government going back some 150 years. When the king sent in his governors, who ruled autocratically as directed by himself and his council, the Americans were outraged. The maxim “no taxation without representation” was but one expression of their revulsion for what they perceived as the wholesale destruction of the historic liberties of British subjects in America. The Sons of Liberty at Boston, notably including Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, eloquently argued for total separation from the British Crown — not the most popular idea at first. But the events at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge caused many to reappraise their position on this matter. In the end, complete separation was the idea that prevailed, and which was finally achieved….
So what was this notion of liberty that had the Americans so exercised? John Trenchard and Robert Gordon, writing in Cato’s Letters — serially published in The London Journal in 1721 and after, which was avidly read in America at the time — describe human liberty as follows:
All men are born free; Liberty is a Gift which they receive from God; nor can they alienate the same by Consent, though possibly they may forfeit it by crimes....
Liberty is the power which every man has over his own Actions, and the Right to enjoy the Fruit of his Labor, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Member of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys.
The fruits of a Man’s honest Industry are the just rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbiter of his own private Actions and Property....
These were the ideas that had earlier inspired the Glorious Revolution of 1688, of which the great British philosopher and political activist, John Locke (1632–1704) — a thinker enormously respected in America — was the intellectual father. Above all, Locke’s ideas constitute a theory of the individual human being. This is the same theory that inspired the American Revolution of 1775: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed….” Indeed, it appears the author of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) was strongly resonating to Locke’s essential political ideas in these passages.
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) — the great Anglo-Irish statesman, political theorist, and philosopher (who as already noted was sympathetic to the American cause) — also articulated the historic rights of Englishmen, and of all free peoples universally, as follows:
“…If civil society be made for the advantage of man, all the advantages for which it is made become his right. It is an institution of beneficence; the law itself is only beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right to live by that rule; they have a right to justice; as between their fellows, whether their fellows are in political function or in ordinary occupation. They have a right to the fruits of their industry; and to the means of making their industry fruitful. They have a right to the acquisitions of their parents; to the nourishment and improvement of their offspring; to instruction in life, and to consolation in death. Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing on others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. But as to the share of power, authority and direction which each individual ought to have in the management of the state, that I must deny to be amongst the direct original rights of man in civil society; for I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. It is a thing to be settled by convention.
“If civil society be the offspring of convention, that convention must be its law. That convention must limit and modify all the descriptions of constitution which are formed under it. Every sort of legislative, judicial, or executory power are its creatures. They can have no being in any other state of things; and how can a man claim, under the conventions of civil society, rights which do not so much as suppose its existence?”
This last point draws attention to Burke’s understanding that the foundational rights of man declared by the French philosophes — Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité — are purely abstract rights indicating no sign of understanding of, or connection with, the actual development and maintenance of a just civil society. In other words, the philosophes envisioned man abstractly, or to put it another way, as abstracted from both nature and society as if this abstract man stands as a total end in himself, as sacrosanct, beyond any demand of society which nature assigns to him as inescapable part and participant of it. It seems the philosophes first reduce the human being to an abstraction — by taking him entirely out of the context of historical experience and traditional understandings of natural law going back millennia. Then, with man having been so abstracted, from there it is easy to dissolve him into an abstract mass: The individual is no longer the natural or even “legal” bearer of rights; rather, the legal bearer of rights is now the mass, the “group”— mankind at large or however else defined.
There is a further consideration regarding the original American founding that we should remember today: The British colony at Massachusetts was not established by means of military power — which is the usual way that states of whatever description acquire new territories. Instead, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was established by religious refugees: They were dissenters from the Church of England, the established church of which the reigning king was titular head.
Beginning with Henry VIII and extending to all his successors, the king of England entirely combined in his own person both the fundamental secular and spiritual authority of British society. But, when religious pilgrims on November 11, 1620, at Provincetown, Massachusetts, ratified what has been described as the first written constitution in human history, the Mayflower Compact, they were acting in resonance to a spiritual authority superior to that of the then-reigning king, James I — or of kings in general.
Just by making the voyage to America, the religious refugees were repudiating the authority of the king over their spiritual lives. Once there, the secular authority of the king was of absolutely no help to them. They had to shift for themselves, and basic survival was the highest priority: Almost the majority of the original colony perished during their first New England winter. They were forced to place their reliance entirely on themselves, on each other, and on God. The Mayflower Compact, moreover, made the pilgrim’s primary reliance on God perfectly explicit. Its first five words are: “In the name of God, Amen.”
Hold that thought while we turn to the French experience.
For centuries, the foundation of French society, culture, and politics had been the idea of the Etats General, of which there were three “estates”: the aristocracy, whose head was the King; the Church, whose head was the Pope; and everybody else; i.e., your average, everyday, common, “small” people….
What is known is that when King Louis XVI was decapitated, the social force of the French aristocracy was effectively decapitated with him. Also it is known that in the four-year period between the invasion of the queen’s bedchamber and the execution of the king, some 16,000 French men and women were guillotined at Paris — mainly aristocrats and other well-off people — as “enemies of the State.” Also all Church lands (probably accounting for some twenty percent of the total French real estate) and property were forcibly confiscated by the State, now reposed in a body called the National Assembly, composed by the Third Estate, the “people” of France. Thousands of clergy — bishops, priests, monks, and nuns — were murdered.
In effect the Third Estate utterly destroyed the other two: That’s the French Revolution in a nutshell.
Foundational Ideology
The French Revolution managed to kill off the first two Estates — and with that, evidently hoped to extinguish forever all aristocratic and theological ideas, pretensions, and powers regarding questions of the human condition. Indeed, the general expectation then seemed to be the Third Estate, the people, unchained from past “superstitions” and “repressions,” had at last come into its own sphere, where it could finally define and exercise true human “liberty.”
But the people were not some sort of homogeneous mass. Rather, there is a natural hierarchical order within the Third Estate similar to that found in both the aristocratic and theological estates.
In France at the time, at the top of this natural hierarchy were the people with expertise in manufacturing, commerce, banking, and law. They were the beneficiaries of the rising tide of the Enlightenment, as plentifully nourished from the side of Newtonian science.
In the rank immediately below them were the skilled craftsmen. Below this, relatively unskilled laborers. Then, the “least” of the people, the peasants/serfs who mainly were the impoverished suffering victims of the feudal order then embraced by both the aristocracy and the Church.
Thus within the Third Estate there were marked disparities of wealth, opportunity, education, talent, and ability. Yet the doctrine of Egalité erases all such distinctions: An Einstein and the most ignorant day laborer were considered “equal.” All were “equal” in the National Assembly too. On this basis, the doctrine of Fraternité, of the universal brotherhood of mankind, is blind and silent regarding the problem of: how the victims of the revolution become “non-brothers” in the first place, such that they could be destroyed with impunity by the mob, or condemned as “enemies of the state” by the National Convention and sent to the guillotine. On this basis, the doctrine of Liberté seems little more than a defense of gratuitous, passionate license that is immensely destructive to society.
Burke’s analysis of the situation in France, the condition of the National Assembly, and their combined implications, retains its extraordinary political noteworthiness to defenders of Liberty in our own day:
“It is no wonder therefore, that it is with these ideas of everything in their constitution and government at home, either in church or state, as illegitimate and usurped, or, at best as a vain mockery, they look abroad with an eager and passionate enthusiasm. Whilst they are possessed by these notions, it is vain to talk to them of the practice of their ancestors, the fundamental laws of their country, the fixed form of a constitution, whose merits are confirmed by the solid test of long experience, and an increasing public strength and national prosperity.
“They despise experience as the wisdom of unlettered men; and as for the rest, they have wrought underground a mine that will blow up at one grand explosion all examples of antiquity, all precedents, charters, and acts of parliament. They have ‘the rights of men.’ Against these there can be no prescription; against these no agreement is binding; these admit no temperament [modification], and no compromise: anything withheld from their full demand is so much of fraud and injustice. Against these their rights of men let no government look for security in the length of its continuance, or in the justice and lenity of its administration….”
Burke again reminds us a few pages later on that there is deep danger in relying on abstract rights when it comes to the organization of a just — that is “liberal,” in the sense of liberty, the root idea of classical liberalism — political society:
“The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men, each to govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience. This it is which makes the constitution of a state, and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of the most delicate and complicated skill. It requires a deep knowledge of human nature and human necessities, and of the things which facilitate or obstruct the various ends which are to be pursued by the mechanism of civil institutions. The state is to have recruits to its strength, and remedies to its distempers. What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.”
In Burke’s view — and I daresay in the view of his contemporary American readers — the French Revolution was a
“… usurpation which, in order to subvert ancient institutions, has destroyed ancient principles, will hold power by arts similar to those by which it has acquired it. When the old feudal and chivalrous spirit of Fealty, which by freeing kings from fear, freed both kings and subjects from the precautions of tyranny, shall be extinct in the minds of men, plots and assassinations will be anticipated by preventive murder and preventive confiscation, and that long roll of grim and bloody maxims which form the political code of all power not standing on its own honor and the honor of those who are to obey it. Kings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”
“Excuse me … if I have dwelt too long on this atrocious spectacle of the sixth of October 1789, or have given too much scope to the reflections which have arisen in my mind on occasion of the most important of all revolutions, which may be dated from that day, I mean a revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions. As things now stand, with everything respectable destroyed without us, and an attempt to destroy within us every principle of respect, one is almost forced to apologize for harboring the common feelings of men….”
Clearly, Burke understands the French Revolution first and foremost as a “revolution in sentiments, manners, and moral opinions” — that is, it was preeminently a social, not a political revolution. Certainly that was not the case with the American Revolution. Indeed, Bernard Bailyn, eminent professor of Early American History at Harvard, has asked a tantalizing question: Was the American Revolution a revolution, or was it an evolution?
The prevailing American view at the time did not reject the ancient British tradition of natural liberty under natural law; it was rejecting King George as the traducer and usurper of this tradition. They didn’t want a king or a pope; they wanted a system of self-government that had already been in long usage in America. Ultimately they wanted a Constitution exclusively devoted to the defense of human liberty under just and equal laws. Which if history was of any guide meant that the action of the State had to be kept minimal in its scope by well-defined authority.
Most colonial Americans, being heirs of the same ancient, natural-law cultural tradition as Edmund Burke, likely would have agreed with him about this:
“…We are not the converts of Rousseau; we are not the disciples of Voltaire; Helvetius has made no progress amongst us. Atheists are not our preachers; madmen are not our lawgivers. We know that we have made no discoveries; and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality; nor many in the great principles of government, nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long before we were born, altogether as well as they will be after the grave has heaped its mould on our presumption….”
The allusion to Rousseau here is particularly instructive. Rousseau held that man is born perfectly good: He is born the “noble savage.” But as soon as he is in the world long enough, he becomes subject to a relentless process of corruption that makes him “bad” — because of the “bad institutions” of society, including churches and states, educational systems, economic organizations, and so forth. Man is victimized by society and powerless against it. “Bad institutions” are entirely to blame for human misery.
In short, Rousseau’s doctrine is directly opposed to the natural law doctrine that human beings are responsible (within limits) for whatever happens to them. Natural law theory holds that individual human beings alone have the ability to choose, decide, act; and that they are responsible for the decisions they make. And this implies the objective existence of good and evil. It also requires a universal (divine) spiritual authority to underwrite the foundational truths of the natural and moral worlds, thus to bring them into correspondence in human reason and experience.
In short, the Americans were not disciples of Rousseau…. He stands their theory of man on its very head.
Two Views of Man — Then and Now
The two revolutions have theories of man that are diametrically opposed, based on the idea of what constitutes human liberty, of the source of human rights. What Locke and Burke and the Americans held in common was the belief that human rights are the gifts of God, and are therefore inseparable from human nature itself. In other words, these rights inalienably inhere in concrete individual persons, each and every one, equally.
In contrast, on the French revolutionary view, human rights are the province of an abstraction known as “mankind.” Its doctrine is the Rights of Man — not the equal, inalienable rights of actual men. It sets up scope for the idea of “group rights,” as opposed to the idea of rights divinely vested in the individual person in such a way as to constitute his or her very own human nature. Under the French Revolution, the “metaphysicians” — Burke’s term for intellectual elites — would guide the rest of us in our understanding of such matters. In short, our rights as human beings ineluctably would be what politically powerful elites tell us they are. There is to be no higher standard of truth than that.
In the so-called post-modern world, the revolution that works overtime to kill truth wants to destroy it at its root — at the Logos. Rather than engage in fully free and fair debate, the entire project of the French Revolution seems have been the delegitimation of the idea that there is an “objective” standard by which Reality can be ascertained and judged, the root criterion for the discernment of good and evil in the actual world, by which human beings, acting according to reason and experience, can guide their lives in fruitful ways — or do the opposite. In short, once the concept of good and evil is destroyed, the human being has no firm guide by which to navigate his own personal existence.
Instead of the perennial question of good v. evil, in the post-modern world some “metaphysicians” tell us there is no objective truth at all — which logically follows from the presupposition of the “death” of God which they have, like Rousseau, already achieved in their own minds. The description of human reality thus boils down to a competition of amoral human “narratives,” or skilled opinions; but in the end still opinions. And under the principle of Egalité, one man’s opinion is just like any other man’s, neither good nor bad.
It appears we have among us today “metaphysicians” who desire, in the words of the great Anglo-American poet T. S. Eliot, to contrive and execute “systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” And then to impose them on humanity. To succeed in this project, first they have to discredit the foundational motivating ideas of the American Revolution….
To speak of the Now: The currently sitting American president seems to be an activist of the French model. He is distinctly a post-modernist thinker, as an analysis of his words vis-à-vis his actions will show. Evidently he has no sympathy for the values, principles, and goals of the American Revolution, and has disparaged the Constitution — to which he freely swore an Oath of fidelity — on grounds that it is a “system of negative liberties” that has outlived its usefulness.
Indeed, it appears that he is doing everything in his power finally to drive a silver stake through the very heart of American liberty — the historic liberty of We the People of the United States of America, and that of our Posterity — for which the Constitution originally was “ordained and established.”
©2010 Jean F. Drew
ENDNOTES
1 Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, David Fideler, ed., Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1988, p. 97.
2 Thomas Fleming, Liberty!: The American Revolution, New York: Viking, 1997, p. 104f.
3 Fleming, p. 105.
4 Ibid.
5 Fleming, p. 112.
6 Fleming, p. 118.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, New York: The Classics of Liberty Library, 1982, p. 105f. Note: Because this edition is a facsimile of the original publication of 1790, I’ve taken the liberty of modernizing the spelling and punctuation.
10 John Trenchard and Robert Gordon, Cato’s Letters, Vol. 1, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., 1995, p. 406ff.
11 Burke, p. 87–88.
12 Burke, p. 85–86.
13 Burke, p. 89–90.
14 Burke, p. 116.
15 Burke, p. 119; emphasis added.
16 Burke, p. 127–128; emphasis added.
BB-””St. Thomas’ Aristotelianism is showing here. For Aristotle regarded soul as the form of the body, as its formal principle, which is immanent to the body. Thus bodies and souls “necessarily” must be created together. “”
Aristotle’s view fits better with Christian Theology and Aquinas saw that.
Here is a great article on this from Université de Rennes 1 translated by Notre Dame University
ARISTOTLE AND AQUINAS ON SOUL
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/ti00/pouivet.htm
Excerpt
Aquinas discovered in Aristotle a new anthropology that was able to give a fundamental role to the body without ignoring what make us human beings: speaking rational creatures. This new anthropology made it possible to understand why salvation was not only the salvation of souls, but of the whole of humanity: of each individual human being, with his body, and as a concrete creature. Probably Aquinas thought that Aristotle’s account of the soul was fundamentally better than Plato’s because it fitted better with Christian theology.(33) The immortality of soul was evident to philosophers in the thirteenth century. What was difficult to understand was that soul is not a separable entity, something internal imprisoned in a corporeal entity. But Aquinas did it perfectly.
Today, some philosophers seem to think that soul is simply an out-dated concept, something that deserves only an historical treatment but which cannot be taken seriously in the wake of modern psychoanalysis, cognitive science and the new philosophy of mind. It is true that neuro-surgeons do far better today than formerly in repairing damaged brains, and that we have very efficient medicine for nervous breakdowns and depression. But, I think that Thomistic account of the soul is a better theory of the mind than any other. It is a sound and thoroughly modern vision in its fundamentals, and one from which we have much to learn.(34)
BB-””It seems to me that God’s Word, His eternal Logos, contains the full specification of all existents and events that unfold in His creation.””
Yes,but fixed events happen in time ,thus, A soul and Body are united together in that fixed event is the way I see it-even though God knows it from eternity
You might enjoy this one ...
Excerpt
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc2_26.htm
God understands even things that neither are nor shall be nor have been.
5. The divine knowledge stands to the things produced by God as the knowledge of an artist to the knowledge of his art. But every art extends to all that can possibly be contained under the kind of things subject to that art, as the art of building to all houses. But the kind of thing subject to the divine art is ‘being’ (genus subjectum divinae artis est ens), since God by His understanding is the universal principal of being (Chapp. XXI, XXIV). Therefore the divine understanding extends its causality to all things that are not inconsistent with the notion of ‘being,’ and is not limited to certain fixed effects Hence it is said: Great is our Lord, and great his power, and of his wisdom; there is no reckoning by number (Ps. cxlvi, 5) Hereby is excluded the position of some philosophers who said that from God’s understanding of Himself there emanates a certain arrangement of things in the universe, as though He did not deal with creatures at His discretion fixing the limits of each creature and arranging the whole universe, as the Catholic faith professes. It is to be observed however that, though the divine understanding is not limited to certain effects, God nevertheless has determined to Himself fixed effects to be produced in due order by His wisdom, as it is said: Thou hast disposed all things in measure, number and weight (Wisd. xi, 21).*
Also.
Plato’s Theory of the Union of the Intellectual Soul with the Body
http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/gc2_57.htm
excerpt
But this reasoning may be met by the following reply on behalf of Plato’s view. — There is no difficulty, it will be said, in mover and moved having the same act, notwithstanding their difference in being: for motion is at once the act of the moving force, from which it is, and the act of the thing moved, in which it is. Thus then, on Plato’s theory, the aforesaid activities may be common to soul and body, belonging to the soul as the moving force, and to the body as the thing moved. But this explanation cannot hold for the following reasons.
1. As the Philosopher proves (De Anima, II), sensation results by the sentient subject being moved or impressed by external sensible things: hence a man cannot have a sensation without some external sensible thing,* as nothing can be moved without a mover. The sensory organ therefore is moved and impressed in sensation, but that is by the external sensible object. What receives the impression is the sense, as is evident from this, that senseless things do not receive any such manner of impression from sensible objects. The sense therefore is the passive power of the sensory organ. The sentient soul therefore in sensation does not play the part of mover and agent, but is that principle in the subject impressed, in virtue of which the said subject lies open to the impression. But such a principle cannot be different in being from the subject impressed. Therefore the sentient soul is not different in being from the animated body.
2. Though motion is the common act of moving force and object moved, still it is one activity to impart motion and another to receive motion: hence the two several categories of action and passion. If then in sensation the sentient soul stands for the agent, and the body for the patient, there will be one activity of the soul and another of the body. The sentient soul therefore will have an activity and proper motion of its own: it will have therefore its own subsistence: therefore, when the body perishes, it will not cease to be.* Thus sentient souls, even of irrational animals, will be immortal; which seems improbable, although it is not out of keeping with Plato’s opinion.* But this will be matter of enquiry further on (Chap. LXXXII).
3. A body moved does not take its species according to the power that moves it. If therefore the soul is only united to the body as mover to moved, the body and its parts do not take their species from the soul: therefore, when the soul departs, the body and the parts thereof will remain of the same species. But this is manifestly false: for flesh and bone and hands and such parts, after the departure of the soul, do not retain their own names except by a façon de parler;* since none of these parts retains its proper activity, and activity follows species. Therefore the union of soul and body is not that of mover with moved, or of a man with his dress.
6. If the soul is united with the body only as mover with moved, it will be in the power of the soul to go out of the body when it wishes, and, when it wishes, to reunite itself with the body.* That the soul is united with the body as the proper form of the same, is thus proved. That whereby a thing emerges from potential to actual being, is its form and actuality. But by the soul the body emerges from potentiality to actuality: for the being of a living thing is its life: moreover the seed before animation is only potentially alive, and by the soul it is made actually alive:* the soul therefore is the form of the animated body. Again: as part is to part, so is the whole sentient soul to the whole body. But sight is the form and actuality of the eye:* therefore the soul is the form and actuality of the body.
As always, It’s enjoyable to correspond with you.
Off to Adoration soon.
I wish you a Blessed day!
And a very good one I must add. What most people don't realize is that it is impossible to even discuss Christian theology without pagan Greek philosophy as its "soul" or life. Considering that Christianity started off as a Jewish sect, completely alien to anything Greek, this is very telling of the fact that Christianity became essentially a Hellenized cult that, at various times and in different regions, differentiated into predominantly Neoplatonic or Aristotelian philosophy.
I can recognize, however, that the creation He made involves things that do not change, and things that are capable of changing.
I thought only God doesn't change, which is what makes him eternal. If that which does not change is also created, then we have problem with what created God and indeed with what is meant by eternal.
Indeed. You'd have thought they'd notice that knowledge itself is "immaterial."
Thank you so much, Texas Songwriter, for your astute observations!
How does this explain the supposition that a soul "feels" and "knows" after physical death?
Knoweldge is not a "thing" that "exists" in a vacuum. It is ability to retrieve information, and is created as a product of interactions in the physical world in the form of recorded patterns. It is a result of intricate system of data processing called learning or imprinting or even hardwiring, particular to a speciies of living things.
And yet Aquinas has been criticized for constructing a purely "natural" theology — which he could hardly avoid doing, if "The Philosopher" — as he designated Aristotle — was to be his guide.
The immortality of soul was evident to philosophers in the thirteenth century. What was difficult to understand was that soul is not a separable entity, something internal imprisoned in a corporeal entity.Certainly the soul is not a separable entity so long as the body, the "corporeal entity," lives. But it does not perish with the body at death. So it does seem to be "separable" in some fashion....
Call me crazy, but to me bodies are in time; but souls are not....
At the same time, I am very glad that the Roman Church addresses problems of the body to an extent we do not see in some other Christian confessions — not to mention non-Christian religions. And I think The Philosopher had something to do with that.
You wrote:
...fixed events happen in time, thus, a soul and Body are united together in that fixed event is the way I see it — even though God knows it from eternity.The operative word here seems to be "in time." An incarnated soul is united to its body — but incarnation is a temporal process, i.e., something that occurs in time....
Also note that events presuppose time. Without time (and space), "natural" events don't happen. As a consequence, "natural theology" seems a tad earthbound at times....
Thank you so much for these truly excellent links dear brother in Christ! Some wonderful food for thought here.... And thank you so much for this fascinating conversation!
Thanks for the ping.
The whole discussion of soul in the UFO/ET field gets reallllly . . . crazy fast.
We are seen as containers . . .
There are TONS of claims that the critters can technologically extract a soul; put it in a clone or even a technological container for at least a time.
I don’t think God would allow that of authentic Chrisitans.
Well FWIW I think His Logos does not change either — the Word of God in the Beginning, Who is God, and is with God. The Logos is thus also Eternal (i.e., Alpha to Omega).
Plus God's Word is Truth — how can truth be truth, if it changes?
And in faith we know the Son of God [Logos] was not created; He was the only-begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.... Monotheist systems lack the richness to describe these ineffable divine relations, and their importance for the understanding of Creation.
As for any purported creator of God: God is absolutely sui generis, infinitely self-subsistent Being....
Just some thoughts, FWTW, dear kosta!
I don't think God would allow that period.
I respectfully differ on your notion that knowledge is "ability". Knowledge is warranted true belief. Knowledge is not an action verb. You may have knowledge that you will meet an aboriginal on your trip to Australia. But if that does not happen that knowledge was never justified and therefore was not true and was not warranted. So knowledge is a belief. A belief is either true or not true. That truth is determined in the way we examine the world around us....forensically, logically, rationally, by inspection, by testing, scientifically, metaphysically, etc. Knowledge is nonphysical and is informational from the first person perspetive. An animated body, devoid of knowledge of any kind would likely be what consciousness philosophers reference as a person with inverted qualia or zombies.
The fact that neurons depolarize and then repolarize means they do what is similar to all other living cells to metabolically. Renal cells depolarize to perform active transport of various chemical across cell membranes. Likewise liver, spleen, white blood cells, thyroid cells, purkinje fibers (part of the cells) muscle....they all depolarize/repolarize to perform a function. These transport mechanism or in the case of skeletal/cariac/smooth muscle change physical configuration (shorten) as a result ot that depolarization. But consciousness, knowledge, truth are not byproducts of cellular depolarization, active or passive transport, but are abstract, nonphysical entities. No one denies the almost law-like correlation with the physical state. But we have no evidence that the liver is consoious about itself...or the heart,....or any other organ.
It seems all informed philosphers regarding consciousness affirm that it exists. The naturalists' epistemology seems to come up short, but the ontology of abstractions is simply skipped over, much like you saying that knowledge is an ability. On the surface it is not even thin....it is incoherent.
An account was reported by by Wilder Penfield, father of neurosurgery. He began by suspecting that consciousness somewhere emminated from the neural activity of the brain, where synapses can depolarize at a rate as high as 10 million billion times per second. By performing surgery on more than 1000 epileptics he encountered concrete evidence that the brain and mind are separate and distinct from each other. Penfield would electrically stimulate the proper motor cortex of the conscious patient and challenge them to keep one hand from moving when the current was applied. These patients would seize the hand with the opposit hand trying to hold it still. Thus one hand was under control of the electrical stimulator and one hand was under the direction of the conscious patients' MIND. Penfield deduced that not only was the patient under control of an outside stimulus but also a nonphysical reality which had interacted with the brain. The Nobel folks seemed to agree that this was remarkable enough to warrant acknowledgement.
I wonder whether you realize that you have resort to a digital machine metaphor/analogy here — a computer. Do you believe the machine model is completely apt as an accurate descriptor of the way humans acquire knowledge? Or of anything else about human beings?
Here's the problem I see: The only machines we know of (digital or otherwise) are human creations, not divine creations. Do you think it reasonable that man's creature should be the standard by which to assess anything about man, its creator?
Do you think human beings are "meat machines?" If you do, then perhaps your analogy is apt.
But to me, if human beings have immortal souls, then they do not reduce to "meat machines".... So I think the machine model is inapt, inept.
We seem to differ on this point. I'd love to know why you think human beings "reduce" to machines....
Thank you so much for writing, dear kosta!
“”How does this explain the supposition that a soul “feels” and “knows” after physical death?””
I don’t know what Plato says about this. However, Aquinas says the following ,but I must admit that some of this stuff fry’s my pea brain :)
From Summa
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1089.htm#article5
Article 5. Whether the habit of knowledge here acquired remains in the separated soul?
Objection 1. It would seem that the habit of knowledge acquired in this life does not remain in the soul separated from the body: for the Apostle says: “Knowledge shall be destroyed” (1 Corinthians 13:8).
Objection 2. Further, some in this world who are less good enjoy knowledge denied to others who are better. If, therefore, the habit of knowledge remained in the soul after death, it would follow that some who are less good would, even in the future life, excel some who are better; which seems unreasonable.
Objection 3. Further, separated souls will possess knowledge by influence of the Divine light. Supposing, therefore, that knowledge here acquired remained in the separated soul, it would follow that two forms of the same species would co-exist in the same subject which cannot be.
Objection 4. Further, the Philosopher says (Praedic. vi, 4,5), that “a habit is a quality hard to remove: yet sometimes knowledge is destroyed by sickness or the like.” But in this life there is no change so thorough as death. Therefore it seems that the habit of knowledge is destroyed by death.
On the contrary, Jerome says (Ep. liii, ad Paulinum), “Let us learn on earth that kind of knowledge which will remain with us in heaven.”
I answer that, Some say that the habit of knowledge resides not in the intellect itself, but in the sensitive powers, namely, the imaginative, cogitative, and memorative, and that the intelligible species are not kept in the passive intellect. If this were true, it would follow that when the body is destroyed by death, knowledge here acquired would also be entirely destroyed.
But, since knowledge resides in the intellect, which is “the abode of species,” as the Philosopher says (De Anima iii, 4), the habit of knowledge here acquired must be partly in the aforesaid sensitive powers and partly in the intellect. This can be seen by considering the very actions from which knowledge arises. For “habits are like the actions whereby they are acquired” (Ethic. ii, 1). Now the actions of the intellect, by which knowledge is here acquired, are performed by the mind turning to the phantasms in the aforesaid sensitive powers. Hence through such acts the passive intellect acquires a certain facility in considering the species received: and the aforesaid sensitive powers acquire a certain aptitude in seconding the action of the intellect when it turns to them to consider the intelligible object. But as the intellectual act resides chiefly and formally in the intellect itself, whilst it resides materially and dispositively in the inferior powers, the same distinction is to be applied to habit.
Knowledge, therefore, acquired in the present life does not remain in the separated soul, as regards what belongs to the sensitive powers; but as regards what belongs to the intellect itself, it must remain; because, as the Philosopher says (De Long. et Brev. Vitae ii), a form may be corrupted in two ways; first, directly, when corrupted by its contrary, as heat, by cold; and secondly, indirectly, when its subject is corrupted. Now it is evident that human knowledge is not corrupted through corruption of the subject, for the intellect is an incorruptible faculty, as above stated (79, 2, ad 2). Neither can the intelligible species in the passive intellect be corrupted by their contrary; for there is no contrary to intelligible “intentions,” above all as regards simple intelligence of “what a thing is.” But contrariety may exist in the intellect as regards mental composition and division, or also reasoning; so far as what is false in statement or argument is contrary to truth. And thus knowledge may be corrupted by its contrary when a false argument seduces anyone from the knowledge of truth. For this reason the Philosopher in the above work mentions two ways in which knowledge is corrupted directly: namely, “forgetfulness” on the part of the memorative power, and “deception” on the part of a false argument. But these have no place in the separated soul. Therefore we must conclude that the habit of knowledge, so far as it is in the intellect, remains in the separated soul.
Reply to Objection 1. The Apostle is not speaking of knowledge as a habit, but as to the act of knowing; and hence he says, in proof of the assertion quoted, “Now, I know in part.”
Reply to Objection 2. As a less good man may exceed a better man in bodily stature, so the same kind of man may have a habit of knowledge in the future life which a better man may not have. Such knowledge, however, cannot be compared with the other prerogatives enjoyed by the better man.
Reply to Objection 3. These two kinds of knowledge are not of the same species, so there is no impossibility.
Reply to Objection 4. This objection considers the corruption of knowledge on the part of the sensitive powers.
Article 6. Whether the act of knowledge acquired here remains in the separated soul?
Objection 1. It would seem that the act of knowledge here acquired does not remain in the separated soul. For the Philosopher says (De Anima i, 4), that when the body is corrupted, “the soul neither remembers nor loves.” But to consider what is previously known is an act of memory. Therefore the separated soul cannot retain an act of knowledge here acquired.
Objection 2. Further, intelligible species cannot have greater power in the separated soul than they have in the soul united to the body. But in this life we cannot understand by intelligible species without turning to phantasms, as shown above (Question 84, Article 7). Therefore the separated soul cannot do so, and thus it cannot understand at all by intelligible species acquired in this life.
Objection 3. Further, the Philosopher says (Ethic. ii, 1), that “habits produce acts similar to those whereby they are acquired.” But the habit of knowledge is acquired here by acts of the intellect turning to phantasms: therefore it cannot produce any other acts. These acts, however, are not adapted to the separated soul. Therefore the soul in the state of separation cannot produce any act of knowledge acquired in this life.
On the contrary, It was said to Dives in hell (Luke 16:25): “Remember thou didst receive good things in thy lifetime.”
I answer that, Action offers two things for our consideration—its species and its mode. Its species comes from the object, whereto the faculty of knowledge is directed by the (intelligible) species, which is the object’s similitude; whereas the mode is gathered from the power of the agent. Thus that a person see a stone is due to the species of the stone in his eye; but that he see it clearly, is due to the eye’s visual power. Therefore as the intelligible species remain in the separated soul, as stated above (Article 5), and since the state of the separated soul is not the same as it is in this life, it follows that through the intelligible species acquired in this life the soul apart from the body can understand what it understood formerly, but in a different way; not by turning to phantasms, but by a mode suited to a soul existing apart from the body. Thus the act of knowledge here acquired remains in the separated soul, but in a different way.
Reply to Objection 1. The Philosopher speaks of remembrance, according as memory belongs to the sensitive part, but not as belonging in a way to the intellect, as explained above (Question 79, Article 6).
Reply to Objection 2. The different mode of intelligence is produced by the different state of the intelligent soul; not by diversity of species.
Reply to Objection 3. The acts which produce a habit are like the acts caused by that habit, in species, but not in mode. For example, to do just things, but not justly, that is, pleasurably, causes the habit of political justice, whereby we act pleasurably. (Cf. Aristotle, Ethic. v, 8: Magn. Moral. i, 34).
Article 7. Whether local distance impedes the knowledge in the separated soul?
Objection 1. It would seem that local distance impedes the separated soul’s knowledge. For Augustine says (De Cura pro Mort. xiii), that “the souls of the dead are where they cannot know what is done here.” But they know what is done among themselves. Therefore local distance impedes the knowledge in the separated soul.
Objection 2. Further, Augustine says (De Divin. Daemon. iii), that “the demon’s rapidity of movement enables them to tell things unknown to us.” But agility of movement would be useless in that respect unless their knowledge was impeded by local distance; which, therefore, is a much greater hindrance to the knowledge of the separated soul, whose nature is inferior to the demon’s.
Objection 3. Further, as there is distance of place, so is there distance of time. But distance of time impedes knowledge in the separated soul, for the soul is ignorant of the future. Therefore it seems that distance of place also impedes its knowledge.
On the contrary, It is written (Luke 16:23), that Dives, “lifting up his eyes when he was in torment, saw Abraham afar off.” Therefore local distance does not impede knowledge in the separated soul.
I answer that, Some have held that the separated soul knows the singular by abstraction from the sensible. If that were so, it might be that local distance would impede its knowledge; for either the sensible would need to act upon the soul, or the soul upon the sensible, and in either case a determinate distance would be necessary. This is, however, impossible because abstraction of the species from the sensible is done through the senses and other sensible faculties which do not remain actually in the soul apart from the body. But the soul when separated understands singulars by species derived from the Divine light, which is indifferent to what is near or distant. Hence knowledge in the separated soul is not hindered by local distance.
Reply to Objection 1. Augustine says that the souls of the departed cannot see what is done here, not because they are ‘there,’ as if impeded by local distance; but for some other cause, as we shall explain (8).
Reply to Objection 2. Augustine speaks there in accordance with the opinion that demons have bodies naturally united to them, and so have sensitive powers, which require local distance. In the same book he expressly sets down this opinion, though apparently rather by way of narration than of assertion, as we may gather from De Civ. Dei xxi, 10.
Reply to Objection 3. The future, which is distant in time, does not actually exist, and therefore is not knowable in itself, because so far as a thing falls short of being, so far does it fall short of being knowable. But what is locally distant exists actually, and is knowable in itself. Hence we cannot argue from distance of time to distance of place.
Article 8. Whether separated souls know that takes place on earth?
Objection 1. It would seem that separated souls know what takes place on earth; for otherwise they would have no care for it, as they have, according to what Dives said (Luke 16:27-28), “I have five brethren . . . he may testify unto them, lest they also come into the place of torments.” Therefore separated souls know what passes on earth.
Objection 2. Further, the dead often appear to the living, asleep or awake, and tell them of what takes place there; as Samuel appeared to Saul (1 Samuel 28:11). But this could not be unless they knew what takes place here. Therefore they know what takes place on earth.
Objection 3. Further, separated souls know what happens among themselves. If, therefore, they do not know what takes place among us, it must be by reason of local distance; which has been shown to be false (7).
On the contrary, It is written (Job 14:21): “He will not understand whether his children come to honor or dishonor.”
I answer that, By natural knowledge, of which we are treating now, the souls of the dead do not know what passes on earth. This follows from what has been laid down (4), since the separated soul has knowledge of singulars, by being in a way determined to them, either by some vestige of previous knowledge or affection, or by the Divine order. Now the souls departed are in a state of separation from the living, both by Divine order and by their mode of existence, whilst they are joined to the world of incorporeal spiritual substances; and hence they are ignorant of what goes on among us. Whereof Gregory gives the reason thus: “The dead do not know how the living act, for the life of the spirit is far from the life of the flesh; and so, as corporeal things differ from incorporeal in genus, so they are distinct in knowledge” (Moral. xii). Augustine seems to say the same (De Cura pro Mort. xiii), when he asserts that, “the souls of the dead have no concern in the affairs of the living.”
Gregory and Augustine, however, seem to be divided in opinion as regards the souls of the blessed in heaven, for Gregory continues the passage above quoted: “The case of the holy souls is different, for since they see the light of Almighty God, we cannot believe that external things are unknown to them.” But Augustine (De Cura pro Mort. xiii) expressly says: “The dead, even the saints do not know what is done by the living or by their own children,” as a gloss quotes on the text, “Abraham hath not known us” (Isaiah 63:16). He confirms this opinion by saying that he was not visited, nor consoled in sorrow by his mother, as when she was alive; and he could not think it possible that she was less kind when in a happier state; and again by the fact that the Lord promised to king Josias that he should die, lest he should see his people’s afflictions (2 Kings 22:20). Yet Augustine says this in doubt; and premises, “Let every one take, as he pleases, what I say.” Gregory, on the other hand, is positive, since he says, “We cannot believe.” His opinion, indeed, seems to be the more probable one—that the souls of the blessed who see God do know all that passes here. For they are equal to the angels, of whom Augustine says that they know what happens among those living on earth. But as the souls of the blessed are most perfectly united to Divine justice, they do not suffer from sorrow, nor do they interfere in mundane affairs, except in accordance with Divine justice.
Reply to Objection 1. The souls of the departed may care for the living, even if ignorant of their state; just as we care for the dead by pouring forth prayer on their behalf, though we are ignorant of their state. Moreover, the affairs of the living can be made known to them not immediately, but the souls who pass hence thither, or by angels and demons, or even by “the revelation of the Holy Ghost,” as Augustine says in the same book.
Reply to Objection 2. That the dead appear to the living in any way whatever is either by the special dispensation of God; in order that the souls of the dead may interfere in affairs of the living—and this is to be accounted as miraculous. Or else such apparitions occur through the instrumentality of bad or good angels, without the knowledge of the departed; as may likewise happen when the living appear, without their own knowledge, to others living, as Augustine says in the same book. And so it may be said of Samuel that he appeared through Divine revelation; according to Sirach 46:23, “he slept, and told the king the end of his life.” Or, again, this apparition was procured by the demons; unless, indeed, the authority of Ecclesiasticus be set aside through not being received by the Jews as canonical Scripture.
Reply to Objection 3. This kind of ignorance does not proceed from the obstacle of local distance, but from the cause mentioned above.
Sure,the soul is separated after death,but Catholic's don't teach the Soul pre exists.
It raises all sorts of questions as to what do all these pre existent souls do or feel and know?...Or do they just hang around blank ready for the order to be filled in time?
Do you see where this is going?
Makes my head hurt thinking about this.I'm glad I have the Church to guide me
In #680 you write "that the creation He made involves things that do not change." That which does not change is eternal, yet your statement suggests that some things eternal are made (i.e. created) by God. How can anything eternal be created?
That is a philosophical definition of knowledge, with which I respectfully differ. Obviosuly animals have a certain degree of knowldge or ability to utilize information. It seems the process is the same but varies in the degree. Belief can never be knowldge in the factual sense. If you know something you don't have to believe it. You know it.
But we have no evidence that the liver is consoious about itself...or the heart,....or any other organ
Consciousness is a property of the nervous system, not other organs. Animals that have highly developed nervous system exhibit levels of consciousness of their surroundings, including themselves, that goes beyond mere reflex.
It seems all informed philosphers regarding consciousness affirm that it exists. The naturalists' epistemology seems to come up short, but the ontology of abstractions is simply skipped over, much like you saying that knowledge is an ability
Well, philosopher's explanation appears no less thin.
Penfield deduced that not only was the patient under control of an outside stimulus but also a nonphysical reality which had interacted with the brain
What "nonphysical" reality? They were challenged to stop the hand. Try to stop breathing. You will be successful to a point and then the "nonphysical reality" will take over and force you to begin breathing again.
Yes, and I think to an extent that is true. We "record" things the way we are! The way we are determines our reality. If we can't smell something, we can't detect it. If we can't hear it it "doesn't exist". If we can't see it, it probably "isn't there." The size of a keyboard is limited by the size of our fingers, the size of cars by the size of our bodies, etc. To us, rock is a "solid" object because we are way to big for it; to a neutrino a rock is wide open space!
Do you think human beings are "meat machines?"
In some aspects, they are. They move, do work, follow commands...
But to me, if human beings have immortal souls, then they do not reduce to "meat machines".... So I think the machine model is inapt, inept.
The idea of an immortal soul, a whole being that "feels" and "sees" and exists transcendentally on another conscious plane, is intriguing. To me, it's like dark matter—a convenient postulate that could answer a lot of questions, but no one knows what it is or how to detect it and recognize it.
Are you contending that there are other definitions for knowledge than a philosophical definition? If so, what would they be? Animals do indeed have sentience, that is first person perceptions, but they differ from man in that they do not process abstract, invarient, universal truths.
Regarding your assertion that belief can never be knowledge in the factual sense, I simply ask you how you derive such a concept..that is knowledge without believing it. You say "if you know something, you don't have to believe it." I presume you mean to say something like, "I know tacos are full of fat and bad for me, but I will eat them anyway." But I ask you, how can you not believe what you know? Is there a physical quality to believing, or knowing? If so, please elucidate.
Consciousness has a strong correlation with matter, but you will need to prove ontologically that conciousness is a property of anything. The best the naturalist philosophers have propounded is that consciousness developed as an epiphenomenon. The problem with that is now they have moved from naturalism to metaphysics, which is anathema to them. Now if you have asserted that consciousness is a physical entity, like all properties found in chemistry and the atomic theory.
Your saying that philosophy, both dualists and naturalist affirm that consciousness is nonphysical.
I will let Dr. Penfield speak for himself.
To stop breathing is a physical event involving conscious control of the skeletal muscles of breathing like you deciding to lift your arm. As carbon dioxide builds up in the blood from lact of gaseous exhange it acts on receptors in the medulla of the brain which overcomes the conscious cessation of the mechanical act of breathing. It then stimulates the muscles to contract and the diaphram to contract and inspiration takes place. This is seem commonly in unconscious people. Now in a patient who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (i.e.emphysema) due to the long term maintainence of elevated CO2 the body has overridden the mechanism and a decreased O2 will stimulate breathing, but from a different focus of stimulation. So unless you are asserting that CO2 and O2 are nonphysical realities, I am afraid we have an impass on this one. Let this one go,...I am sort of an expert on this subject.
Facts, information, skills acquired form experience. Knowledge is a convenient term for learned behavior. The etymology of the word is form acknowledge or recognize, see, detect, etc. And from the verb to know, to be aware of, being acquainted with something, having experienced something, etc. Nothing philosophical about it.
Some higher animals show ability for simple abstraction. Therefore we can speak of a degree that is species-specific, and not something that is found only in humans.
Belief is a priori, more like "feeling sure" than being sure. Knowledge is more a posteriori, that is being sure after the fact.
You will have to prove that consciousness is something "ontological," that it has "nature" which can be known.
Obviously, consciousness is a quality of the state of animation which can be blocked, or better yet suppressed with chemical agents blocking the central nervous system to various degrees.
Consciousness is most definitely our property, an attribute or quality of our animated state.
Epiphenomenon is an appropriate term for an attribute that emanates from the primary phenomenon and doesn't have to be metaphysical.
Metaphysics is not part of natural science, so it is anathema in that regard. It has no place in natural science.
The body is adaptive. It will find ways to produce glucose from unorthodox sources if necessary. Usually such adaptive changes, while accomplishing the primary goal, have undesirable secondary effects.
That doesn't scare me. Never assume to know what others know.
I pray you are right.
‘Tis a crazy world getting crazier by the minute.
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