I. The Two Ways of Viewing the ChurchThere are two ways of looking at the Church. I don’t mean here “visible v. invisible,” but rather the fundamental way that orthodox and heterodox Christians differ in their conception of the Church. They are, broadly: As a divinely-ordained body created by Christ, entrusted with a sacred and… Continue reading The Two Views of Church
Author: Joe Heschmeyer
Fr. De Celles on the Rapture
As promised, here’s Fr. De Celles’ homily from last Sunday on the topic of the Rapture and the End Times – it’s nice to see a Catholic perspective on these things, although I acknowledge that a limited diversity of belief is permitted on a number of the subjects he addresses here. The first reading was… Continue reading Fr. De Celles on the Rapture
Why Would an All-Knowing God Test Us?
Hmyer asks, at the end of my last post, The story of Abraham and Issac is difficult, but not so much ( for me) because God has the right to “kill” Isaac and take him to heaven. The difficulty for me is that God would accomplish this by asking Abraham to do the killing. It’s… Continue reading Why Would an All-Knowing God Test Us?
The Euthyphro Dilemma, Part 1
Is Good “Good” Because God Commands it? Or Does God Command it Because it is Good? That’s the crux of the Euthyphro dilemma, so-named because it derives from Socrates’ question in Plato’s Euthyphro, “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”… Continue reading The Euthyphro Dilemma, Part 1
Give Up All You Have and Follow Me!
About a month ago, the Gospel reading was Mark 10:17-30: As Jesus was setting out on a journey, a man ran up,knelt down before him, and asked him,“Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”Jesus answered him, “Why do you call me good?No one is good but God alone.You know the commandments: You… Continue reading Give Up All You Have and Follow Me!
An Interesting Criticism of Catholic Converts
I. Tucker’s Arguments Against Converts.Jeffrey Tucker at BeliefNet complains about the behavior of Catholic converts. It’s interesting, because he is a Catholic convert. He rightly notes that we Catholics love our converts and make a big deal of them, but he thinks that left unchecked, this can be damaging. Tucker claims that our convert-mania is… Continue reading An Interesting Criticism of Catholic Converts
Potentially Great News on Healthcare & Abortion
The Stupak Amendment passed the House’s floor vote, meaning that the House version of the health-care bill now contains strong pro-life language preventing federal funds from being used to finance abortion. What this means, practically speaking. (1) The Democrats’ health-care bill should pass the House easily now, and (2) if the House version goes into… Continue reading Potentially Great News on Healthcare & Abortion
Another Argument for A Created Universe
This argument dovetails nicely with the Kalām argument that I mentioned earlier. My little brother (who is 14, by the way), mentioned it to me, and he got it from St. Thomas Aquinas, more or less. It’s based on the argument from contingency, and the easiest way to explain it is this: given enough chances,… Continue reading Another Argument for A Created Universe
Praying for the Victims of the Ft. Hood Shooting
As I’m sure almost everyone reading this knows by now, yesterday, US Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army pyschatrist, murdered a number of people on the Ft. Hood Army Base. It sounds right now that there are 13 people killed and 31 wounded, but that number’s been a bit in flux over the last… Continue reading Praying for the Victims of the Ft. Hood Shooting
John 6 and the Eucharist
Catz asked me why we should understand John 6 literally. First, all the Church Fathers believed in the Real Presence in the Eucharist, so this wasn’t a confusion that those who heard the Apostles had. Any time there’s a part of the Bible universally understood in a certain way in the early Church, the hurdle… Continue reading John 6 and the Eucharist