Form as a Universal Principle and Cause of all Finite Being - Month of May

Greetings in the season that so emphatically illustrates the vertical dimension of our universe: the Up and the Down directions of all corporeal things. Even the Angels obey these laws of our physical world - whenever they come and go on missions to us from God. And even the Reveternity which is the Angels' version of Time, is known, at least by us, in terms of Up and Down, as in Jacob's Ladder, wherein the Angels ascend and descend in a temporal dimension that appears to us, and is really, a horizontal or linear dimension, known in Thomistic theology as the Order of Generation of processes, that obey the laws of their specific Forms. So these two dimensions, the vertical - up and down, and the linear-temporal - horizontal co-exist, and, indeed, one cannot exist without the other. Together they define the Formal Cause and Principle of the Universe as a whole, and as a Substantial Being - the first of all things - corporeal - created by God on Day One of the First Week of the World.  

 

Now it seems not only fair and true, but even necessary, to say that this First of all Substantial Forms is also the First of all Secondary Causes. God is, and always acts as, Universal Governor and Maintainer-Sustainer - Efficient First-Primary Cause after having first created and made all things ex nihilo and in toto - just as He has told us infallibly and in no uncertain words, just how and where and when He did this. Genesis One through three is of primary importance for our Catholic Science - supporting our Catholic theology - in all of its ascending and descending branches of the great Hierarchy of Reality.

 

In these earliest chapters of Genesis - God Himself defines and describes for us the entire Order of Creation. And by chapters two and three - we see the Order of Generation - though in prophecy (Gen.3:15) - until the birth of Cain and then Abel, (Gen. 4: 1-11.) It is very important to understand - because of the prevalence of the heresy of evolutionism - that after Day Six of the First Week of the World - God has created no new Substantial Forms, except those human souls. Now, while the Human Rational (intellect & will) - is the one substantial form of the human being - and must be created directly and immediately by God for each human being, the physical being of humans are still liable to a great deal of physical variation. But these accidental variations of the physical categories, are strictly limited in their possibilities BY THE FORM - which dictates and controls, UNDER GOD'S PRIMARY - EFFICIENT CAUSALITY - exercised in the Beginning. When God created the first SUBSTANTIAL FORMS OF ALL CORPOREAL (hylemorphic, matter-form) beings, - He obviously gave to these beings the power of agency - that is - of re-producing their own kinds.

 

This is secondary causality, because God, as the sole source of EXISTENCE - remains always and everywhere - the FIRST PRIMARY EFFICIENT CAUSE of all things - acting now - in the Order of Generation - not as some erroneously suppose as secondary cause - but as First Cause (in the Six Days!) - having conferred upon His living creatures, the power of agency to transmit by reproduction ("increase and multiply") - the same Substantial Form - which God alone could first of all create - ex nihilo and in toto in the beginning - you see the absolute importance and necessity for the literal Six Days!

 

Empirical science even proves, insofar as induction can, that there are no new Substantial Forms in the history of the world that science studies. Empirical science has discovered many wonderful properties, as those of the elements - especially of the electro-magnetic spectrum and the atoms. It is from these elements that science has provided all the wonders of modern technology. And so, what are the elements? That is the big question.

 

Aristotelian-Thomistic Metaphysics tells us that the elements, (we are speaking of hydrogen, oxgen, carbon, nitrogen, etc etc...) are structures constantly in motion, and constantly changing their formal arrangements, in order to combine with other elements to form other elements, such as larger molecules of sugar, salt etc. This versatility of the atomic elements indicates that they are accidental properties of some larger Substantial Form, in which they inhere, and from which they receive their directions for operations - but also the limitations beyond which they may not go. The elements are most remarkable for the fact that they obey the dictates of whatever substantial form into which they enter: plant, animal, mankind.

 

You see the importance - the primacy of form over function! As I never tire of pointing out: only green plants perform the process of photosynthesis - and yet - the very same elements of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, etc...are present and operative in the Substantial Forms of animals and man. The elements simply obey the dictates of that Substantial form they have entered into. Discovering the synthesizing processes unique to each substantial form is a very fertile field of research awaiting study and experimentation.

Human Dignity

The human dignity so talked about today - but never really examined - because it is a concept used in total abstraction from our real creaturehood. The concept is referenced mainly by Catholic apologists attempting to confer some kind of real dignity on the evolutionary fable of man's organic development, or now the term is emergence from a population of hominids. The atheistic evolutionist emphasizes man's lowly insignificance in the great evolutionary scheme of things, whereas the theistic evolutionist, such as Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn, exalts the human dignity of emergent humanity in view of what he has since become and especially in view of the Incarnation. The real drama of Creation – ex nihilo and in toto – is thereby conveniently overlooked, - especially the key factor in that drama – which is man’s Fall from Grace called Original Sin. It is very difficult to find the kind of human dignity so exalted by Pope John Paull II and his followers in the state of fallen nature that still awaits the final and most complete redemption in the new Heavens and the new Earth of the Apocalypse, chapter 21.



It is true that we find the best examples of real human dignity in the canonized saints. The most striking feature of the human dignity of the saints is the fact that it is conspicuous by its absence! Think of the gross insult to all human dignity embraced by Saint Peter – our first Pope – in being – by his own request – crucified upside down – because he was unworthy to be crucified in the same way as Our Lord and Master – Jesus Christ. Or the desire of St. Ignatius of Antioch to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts into a perfect wheat for Christ! This is human dignity reduced to the lowest form of life in the hierarchy of being. Or the perfect joy of St. Francis. This is the time in history when the Franciscan mode of spirituality is given free rein! The Franciscans control EWTN, - the one and only worldwide television network that can be called Catholic. But I have not yet heard of the perfect joy in St. Francis. That episode, though fictional, is a true representation of the real spirituality of St. Francis – and it is a truly shameful picture of human dignity on the fact of both the doorkeeper who refused hospitality to the begging wayfarers, and the true followers of Christ, who had nowhere to lay their heads, even in the midst of the snows of the Alpine winter!



Well, it’s hard to know for sure just what they mean by this human dignity in practice – because in practice it turns out to be a disguise for pride. This, at least, is the constant teaching of asceticism – which is but the flip side of truly Catholic mysticism. The nada and toda of St. John of the Cross are but the total death – even annihilation (anneantisement) of the prideful self inherited from Adam as the consequence of his Original Sin. Baptism removes the guilt, but not the wounds – the consequences in our disordered nature, of that Original Sin inherited with the physical body from our biological parents. All talk of human dignity should be based solely, on the “image and likeness” of Genesis One: 26-27, and securely caged in by the subsequent Fall and its consequences. This leaves the souls of men and women and children pretty much stripped – especially in these our corrupt times – of all but that saving disposition – theologically termed the potential obedientialis or potency- that is – disposition for the obedience required by divine Catholic Faith, Hope and Charity.



It is extremely distressing to find in a nursing home - such as the one in which I am living, so many Catholics who, to all appearances – have lost all hope of heaven. Of course, only God knows what is going on in the depths of the soul. I speak only as one adult Catholic seeking Catholic “fellowship” with another Catholic. I can attest to this: at least two Catholics have followed my example in making the Sign of the Cross at meals. And one of these says the Rosary every day, although cancer is taking her down physically – very visibly. There is a great field – white for the harvest here – but I see no Tradtionalist priests taking it up. The Catholics here, except myself, all of whom are Novus Ordo, do, indeed, receive the ministrations of some sweet old ladies who bring Holy Communion about once or twice a month on weekdays.



Kyrie, eleison.

Attention Michael Baker of Australia

Truth is One, but because Reality is a Hierarchy of Being, which truths reflect, some truths are more important than others for our eternal salvation. At the same time, every truth in the Hierarchical Structure of Reality is most intimately related to every other truth, but most especially to the truth just above it and that truth just below it in the Hierarchy. Thus, mankind is most intimately related to the Angels just above him, because of his rational - spiritual - substantial soul, but also to the animals just below him - because of his sensate body needing nourishment from the plants of the Earth.

That is the vertical structure of reality which is static, unchanging. There is also the dynamic - historical Order of Generation, by which generations succeed one another in the Order of Time. Now let me refer you to the 2nd Way of proving God's Existence that St. Thomas Aquinas presents in the Summa, Q2, a3.

Unless you subscribe to an eternal world, which is an error against Faith, and commit to an infinite regress, you will accept St. Thomas' proof of God's Existence as Cause - First Efficient Cause of all things, but not the Creator. According to St. Thomas, belief in God as Creator of all things - ex nihilo and in toto (in their whole substance) was first defined by the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, (check my memory on this.) But Creation is the first article in all of the earliest Creeds. So it is, we must agree, a primary article of Faith and one very closely related to the natural knowledge of God's Existence as First Efficient Cause of all things. (Cf Romans, 1:20)

I am trying to determine, and am asking you to help me determine, just how important Creation is in the Hierarchy of Truths that must be believed in order to be saved.

The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, have always, - that is - traditionally been known as the historical books, only to single them out as differing from the Wisdom books, the Prophets, and other more specific in topic and person books such as Ruth, Judith, Tobias, Job and 1st and 2nd Machabees. I left out Esther, Joshua and Judges. These are all histories in the truest sense, and treated so by the Father and Doctors of the Church. They only have the added dimension of supernatural typology - which begins with Adam and Eve, literally our first parents, but also proto-typical to Jesus Christ, Our Lord, the Second Adam, and Mary Immaculate, His Mother, the Second Eve. There is no true typology without a real-literal Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, and so on. All of this discussion leads to one inescapable conclusion, and that is this: Everything - theologically, meta-physically, physically and historically presupposes Creation. And I have spent a large part of my adult life in trying to demonstrate that the Catholic Creationist, both as to science and theology, has the firmest ground to stand upon.

 

In previous papers, I pointed out that the Council of Trent, the First Vatican Council in its Decree on Creation and/or Revelation, and Leo XIII's --- Providentissimus Deus - not to mention innumerable Fathers and Doctors, hold to a view of Scripture as "dictated by the Holy Spirit" - and a view of the literal sense as absolutely primary and historical in those books where recorded history is intended. Pope Benedict XV in his encyclical - Spiritus Paraclitus, - condemned the division of Scripture into primary and secondary meanings, what today, implicitly denying all previous magisterial teachings, is dividing Scripture into what pertains to "salvation history" and what is termed historical and scientific error. This is pure Modernist Heresy and the burden of proof is on you, Mr. Michael Baker - to prove that you are not a Modernist - whose primary doctrine is the law of evolution. So says the encyclical - Pascendi - and the Syllabus - Lamentabili - of Pope St. Pius X
 

I take my stand on these two documents - as well as on all the others cited and on the Ruling in 1909 of the Biblical Commission that assures me I am not in error or heresy if I take the word .....yom ....in Genesis One to mean a literal - natural - 24 hour day. How dare you take it upon yourself to accuse people like me of schismatic tendencies and jeopardizing the Faith because we obey this ruling of the PBC? If I have done so, myself, and I admit I have accused evolutionists of heresy and complicity in heresy, it is because of......Pascendi ...and ....Lamentabili. I suggest you read and study these magisterial documents, since it seems you have never heard of them. The existence of God with His Creation of all things, ex nihilo and in toto - are indispensable dogmas for salvation.

 

Please note: Lateran Council's use of the term, - in their whole substance - in toto - absolutely requires a literal, natural, 24 hour Day for the Days of Creation - the First Week of the World - just as narrated in Genesis One.

 

Creation is an Act of God - outside of time. Evolution is a process - entirely in the minds of certain - so-called scientists. Therefore, it is an ideology, and does not merit the name of philosophy.

March for Life in Ottawa, Canada, March 9-10

 
One need only see the coverage of any major public event by EWTN, such as the one announced above, to realize that the public life of the visible church today is completely controlled by the Franciscans, and specifically those of the Scotist school.

Duns Scotus was a voluntarist. That means he emphasized and valued the will over the intellect.

It takes a real Thomist to see the proper relation of both intellect and will. For the will is the nobler faculty, to use St. Thomas' own term. The will is blind and depends upon the intellect to show it both the true, the intellect's proper object of the will. It is also the task of the intellect's judgmental power to discern the real from the only apparent good. For example, just about everything has an aspect of good - because the good is one of the three transcendental aspects of all being. But this particular good thing may not be the real good for me at this time and place. Getting into moral theology here, which branch of theology is the only one operative today. And it is not very strongly in evidence, as clearly evident to all. But the intellectual life of the church is in even worse condition, being in a position not only of near absence but where at all present, subject to hostility and contempt. This is to be expected in a society wherein "freedom" has become license. The awful thing about the will is that it tends to call to its defense, in every circumstance, except where it is unusually purified by a wise asceticism, all the lower passions and tendencies to evil that we suffer because of Original Sin.

Remember those three consequences: Darkening of the intellect. Weakening of the will. A strong inclination to evil.

But as Our Lord told St. Paul and also each one of us: "My Grace is sufficient for thee."

But I think we must have enough intellect left to understand that we must ask Him for these most precious gifts of His Grace....The intellect sees and judges - but it is the will that chooses. Therefore: Sin is always and only in the will.

The intellect brings the whole person to contemplation of Truth. The will brings the whole person to action for good works. The Saints are those in love with the truth and desirous of bringing all souls to this love for Truth by all appropriate means available in the Church and the world. Real good does not exist apart from the Truth. To save souls cannot mean anything but bringing souls to a love for the truth. The highest truths are those of Faith - for Truth is a hierarchy - reflecting the Hierarchy that is Reality. There are degrees of being and perfection. See the 4th Way of proving God's existence.

God alone is ALL being, all ACT, with no needs, - no potencies for further Being -- infinite Reality - Infinite Goodness - Truth and Unity - infinite power, infinite knowledge - infinite wisdom. Any good or perfection we can find in a creature is in God infinitely. What more can one say?

What needs to be said, and said constantly, is the prayer Our Lady gave to the three children at Fatima in 1917:

Oh My God, I believe, I adore, I trust and I love Thee - and I ask pardon for all those who do not believe, do not adore - do not trust and do not love Thee.

These are abbreviations of the Acts of Faith, of Hope and of Love - the three Theological Virtues received in Baptism. How many Catholics today can say the Act of Faith - the Act of Hope and the Act of Charity in their entirety?



 

The Absolute Necessity of the Six Days of Genesis

The modernists reserve a very special animosity for the literal, 24 hour - Days of Genesis One. It is not only the elements that are rejected - but the Order of their presentation in the narrative. Scott Hahn and his "school" make much of this ORDER as a literary device, reducing Genesis One to a merely literary decoration.


Some cosmology!


God is just no scientist!


It is true that St. Thomas and the medieval were the first to see this format of


Day 1 ---- Day 4

Day 2 ---- Day 5

Day 3 ---- Day 6



(Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, Genesis - page 18 - based on ST.I, q. 70, a.1)



However, this literary scheme is presented somewhat as a mere afterthought, as anyone can see who consults the Summa's Treatise on the Six Days, Part I, questions 65 through 74 – a mere afterthought to a really stupendous cosmology.


And, if we see the four ancient elements of Earth-Water-Air-Fire as the entire inanimate realm of the atomic elements with light, which St. Thomas defines as a quality of the first sensible body, then the literal meaning and the ORDER of the Six Days, reveals in a rather spectacular way, the absolute necessity for the Six Days, exactly as they are revealed to us in Genesis One. Test it out this way.


Suppose the “work” of Day 4 – were to have happened on Day 2, as the evolutionists would have it. The “work” of Day 4 had God fixing the celestial bodies – Sun, Moon, and Stars, in their places in the firmament and revolving around the central, fixed Earth. But on Day 2, the Earth was still covered with Water. Day 2 actually saw the distinction of the Waters above from the waters below, and the setting of the outermost limits of the boundaries of the Universe by its farthest-reaching spheres. So if the Sun, Moon and Stars began to function on Day 2 – instead of on Day 4 – their entire purpose would be thwarted – because dry land only appeared on Day 3 – along with the waters of Earth arranged in Seas. Only with Day 3 and its proper work – was the existence of Sun, Moon and Stars meaningful. Granted – the water cycle was quite different before the Flood and after the Flood. But this – too – would have been quite meaningless if Day 4 had followed directly from Day One.


All the elements are ordered to the great cycles – wherein the inanimate elements enter into the living, animate forms to perform their essential processes. If even one of the Six Days had been in another place, these wonderfully necessary cycles of interchange would have been radically disrupted, destroying the Order of the Universe and its unity. Try shifting them around for yourself. It just does not work.


God’s created order is not just better or best, it is necessary. And not only is the ORDER necessary, but the literal – 24 hour day is also absolutely necessary. Day 3 could not have lasted millions or billions of years without the Sun, Moon and Stars of Day 4 – because without the celestial bodies, there could be no carbon cycle, the interchange of elements causing photosynthesis. There could have been no nitrogen cycle – so necessary for the disposal of waste. The 24 hour day is as necessary as the Ordering of the Days. It is impossible to imagine the Divine “work” of Day 5 occurring after Day 6 or before Day 4, which would necessitate putting Day 6 after Day 4. This would “create” chaos!


Any understanding of the vital inter-relations of the elements and their cycles – reveals the absolute necessity for the literal 24 hour day and the ordering of the Six Days – just as revealed to us in Genesis One.


I challenge anyone to reveal a flaw in the above --- not in my poor presentation, but in the claim for the necessity of the Six Days.

The Natural Sciences

When St. Thomas points out that all the works of nature, meaning secondary causes, presuppose creation - he is making a very important point, and it is this: the scientist studies the processes of secondary causes, but not the Acts of Creation, that God did during the First Six Days of the World. During these first Six Days, God created the Substantial Forms of all His corporeal creatures. Only God can create, and what He created during the first Six Days were the bara-min, the created kinds of all things. The formal objects of the natural sciences are the processes, the functioning of these created substantial forms: plant kinds, animal kinds, man-kind. The form was given at creation. The nine categories of accidents, are what the natural scientist studies. These are quantity, (the science of mathematics), - (quality, sound, color, etc.) - agency and passivity (the science of motion, which is is the passing from potency to act) -- time which is the measurement of motion; for example, time is the measure of the motion from sunrise to sunset. Place - the locale and could be environment. Relation - relatedness can be taken as consanguinity, and this is how Aristotle understood it. But it can also refer to structural relations, as of the difficult atoms in a process such as photosynthesis. Habit is cloth and Posture is shape..e.g. geometry. 
 

The accidental properties of a Substantial Form are the formal objects of the natural sciences. It is for metaphysics and theology to study Substance. It is obvious how very far astray the natural sciences can go when the correct, metaphysical concept of Substance is lost. That is exactly what has happened today in all of the natural sciences. It is especially obvious that the science of physics has reduced itself to mathematics - that is quantity. 
 

Now, it is true that every corporeal or physical entity is a quantity - by the very nature of its being physical, that is, material, it is measurable and so - a quantity. The atom is a prime example. And since the atoms are the entities, whose interactions are the object of chemistry, there is much interchange in these two sciences. In fact, since the atoms constitute the material of ever physical being, physics and chemistry are the most basic of all the physical, natural sciences. But what is the substance in which the atoms inhere? 
 

That is the big question!
 

And only when this question is correctly answered, are the natural sciences able to fulfill their proper role of contemplating and describing the Creator's Work for His glory - and also, as a really lowly - in fact - the lowliest task of the natural sciences, to suggest some possible uses that discoveries of natural laws might be put. Hence, the useful arts.
 

I do not know enough of the history of technology, but it is common knowledge, I think, that the first of the useful arts arose with the discovery of certain metals and their properties. Technology rose first in making means of transportation, especially of ships. Look at the technology involved in the building of Noah's Ark, described in Genesis 6. Aristotle represents the highest degree of perfection in the natural sciences - without the aid of Divine Revelation. Based on his Organon:
 

Quantity - mathematics and all its branches, especially geometry.
 

Quality - the discovery of the electro-magnetic spectrum is the quantitative basis for all qualities of a merely physical nature, e.g. Newton's Optics. 
 

Agency and Disposed Passivity
 

All Secondary Causes, are Agents of Reproduction in the Life Sciences

The Hierarchy of the Sciences

Theology - Queen of the Sciences - The Science of God based on Divine Revelation and Tradition

Metaphysics - (First Philosophy) - Handmaid of Theology - A Natural Science of Being as such

Mathematics - based on quantity - basic interior of material being

Cosmology and Astronomy - Days One and Two in Genesis!

Physics and Chemistry - The Inanimate Elements as accidental forms (atomic) of the substance: Body of the Universe

All the Life Sciences and Geology - Earth Sciences - must see the Flood

Adam Named the Animals

There is great significance in this, especially for Eve as the model of fallen, female nature. If Eve had been called upon to name the animals, -- assuming, too, that God created her before He had Adam name them - also, greatly significant - but Eve would have seen only the shapes and colors and antics of the animals: Blackie, Brownie, Fluffy, Snowball, Misty, Floppy, and so on. Only Adam was able to penetrate to the very essential nature of each animal, bird and insect. He was and remains, intellectually superior to Eve. An exhaustive study of the women of the Old Testament and then of Christendom would prove this. A phrase in the Douay-Rheims translation of Genesis, 5:2, says that "God" created them male and female - and blessed them - and called their name Adam in the day when they were created."


Theologians commenting on these verses of Genesis teach that Adam alone signifies human nature, the composite of matter and form, (potency and act), body and mind---soul-spirit. But in a secondary sense, human nature is not complete without the female component. This explains the verse quoted above wherein it is said that God called their name Adam, signifying one human nature with two necessary components - in addition to body and soul, there is male and female.


What is completely forgotten or overlooked today is the fact that in all of these pairs, there is a relationship not of equality, but of hierarchy, of order-source and subordination, of Head and members, of intellect and will, of Soul-Mind-Spirit to Body. And so, of male to female.


When this created order is violated, only Disorder results, obviously - and Disorder never makes for happiness. Only in the Most Blessed Trinity is there an absolute equality of Persons, "of majesty", (Preface). Their remote reflection in the human family - and particularly in the Holy Family - abundantly illustrates this created Hierarchy of Father, Mother and Child. Note, too, the difference in sequential order.

Attention: Scott Hahn

All the natural sciences are based - for their truth value - on the literal meaning of Genesis 1-11. This includes the immense topographical changes in the Earth and its relations to the cosmos that took place as a result of the Flood, (Genesis 6-11). The science of linguistics must also take into consideration the dispersion of the nations after Babel, described in Genesis 11. All the natural sciences are based on the literal meaning of Genesis. But I do not see any such discussion of Biblical Cosmology and the other sciences in the work of Scott Hahn and his "school", based on a literal Six-Day Creation. The JEDP or Documentary Theory has long since been discredited by Henry M. Morris and most recenlty P.J. Wiseman of Australia, (I think..), and many others. The early chapters of Genesis are structured by a series of eyewitness accounts, from Adam and then Noah - to the sons of Isaac, - the Patriarchs. Please check the search engines on the internet for the sources and full explanations. Look under toledoth.

The first three chapters of Genesis are the basis of all the natural sciences – from Cosmology to Biology. The science of man or human nature is, of course, mainly theological science, and Epistemology is the science of how we know reality.

Scott Hahn has lots of homework to do!

The Little Flower as Prophet

 

 

Not many people, even those most devoted to her, think of Saint Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower, as a Prophet.  But this is not surprising, when one recalls the many passages in her autobiography, The Story of a Soul, wherein she tells of her love for nature, particularly flowers and birds.  She tells of the day out fishing with her dear Papa, “the beautiful blue sky became suddenly overcast and soon the thunder began to roll and the lightning to flash through the dark clouds.  I saw it strike a short distance away, and, far from being frightened, I was thrilled with delight because God seemed to be so close!...” (Pages 37-38 in Autobiography translation by John Clarke, O.C.D., 1CS, 1975.)  Even more significant is the passage wherein Therese tells of her growing love for learning.  She was in her early teens: 

 

“I had always loved the great and the beautiful, but at this epoch in my life, I was taken up with an extreme desire for learning.  Not satisfied with the lessons and work my teacher was giving me, I applied myself to some special studies in history and science, and I did this on my own.  The other studies left me indifferent, but these two subjects attracted all my attention.  In a few months I acquired more knowledge than during my years of study.  Ah, this was really only vanity and affliction of spirit.  The chapter in the Imitation of Christ, which speaks of knowledge came frequently to my mind…” (Page 101.)

 

Was it not these earlier impressions – made by the very emphatically – empirical and materialistic science of her day (1873-1897) – that prompted and allowed the Holy Spirit to show her at the end of her life, where that knowledge was to lead the world?  Darwin’s Origin, had shocked the cultural milieu of Europe only some fourteen years before she was born (1859). 

 

And so, during the August before her ecstatic death of love, - September 30, Mother Agnes (her sister Pauline), has this entry in her Notebook: 

 

“One evening, in the infirmary, she was drawn to confide her troubles to me more than she usually did.  She had not yet opened up in this way on this subject.  Up until then, I had known her trial of faith only vaguely. (p.257 in Last Conversation.) 

 

I interject here, the comment that, --  Mother Agnes apparently relates the following words of Therese to Therese’s trial of Faith – not seeing the broader references to the world at large.  Also, not seeing the importance of these words themselves, she, Mother Agnes, failed to record the entire prophecy – for such it was.  These are the words of Therese – recorded by Mother Agnes:

 

“If you only knew what frightful thoughts obsess me.  Pray very much for me in order that I do not listen to the devil, who wants to persuade me about so many lies.  It’s the reasoning of the worst materialists, which is imposed upon my mind:  Later, unceasingly making new advances, science will explain everything naturally….we shall have the absolute reason for everything that exists and that still remains a problem … because there remain very many things to be discovered, etc..etc..”  (Last Conversations. Trans. John Clarke, O.C.D., 1977 – p.257)

 

Apparently, Mother Agnes did not record the entire words concerning the “discoveries” of science, but we, in hindsight, can fill in the events she saw in vision.  The words of Therese warn us of the Atheism that the false science of evolutionism produces.  It is the fulfillment of what Pascendi, describes as the subjugation of Faith to “Science” – to what poses as true science. 

 

St. Therese went on to say, as recorded by Mother Agnes: 

 

“Finally, I offer up these very great pains to obtain the light of faith for poor unbelievers, for all those who separate themselves from the Church’s beliefs.”  Mother Agnes interjects:  “She added that she never reasoned with these thoughts.”  In other words, she did not attempt to argue with the Devil, much less to dialogue with him, as Eve had done. 

 

Therese concludes:  “I undergo them under duress, but while undergoing them, I never cease making acts of faith.  (Last Conversations. – p.257-258)

 

St. Therese, pray for us who live in the darkness of this false science, that we too, never cease making acts of Divine Faith in all the truths of Faith and of Reason. 

 

 

 

The Six Days: Old and New - Part 4

All of which are fittingly described as a truly Divine Rhetoric designed, as St. Paul says, to instruct, and for our learning....(Cf Romans 15:4 and 2 Tim.3:16)

 

 

God created the Body of the Universe and set its limits on Day Two. The Heavens and the Earth, with water, air and fire and light, were all created on Day One. The elements, constituting this Body of the Universe, and the composition of Act and Potency, of Form and Matter, the latter being the Prime Matter and the constituency of the First Substantial Form with all of its accidents - all, as Days One and Two, were inanimate. God created no physical - living forms until Day Three. With the Fathers and the Doctors, we believe the Angels, in a great spiritually, luminous Hierarchy of Nine Choirs, were also created on Day One. I like to think of the Angels and the Elements as Mirror images of each other - the Angels at the very top of the Hierarchy of Created Beings and the elements at the very bottom.

 

 

But these inanimate elements become absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the life-forms created on Days Three, Five and Six, - including mankind. In this way and because of this, it must be seen that they participate in some way in the life-principle of the living form into which they enter. This demonstrates the necessity for the Six - Twenty-four hour days in the Order of Creation. I have just read the article “New from Nothing – Is God Still Creating Today?” by James Johnson of ICR, in Acts and Facts, for May of 2013. If ever there was an opportunity for true ecumenism, it is here and now. Dr. Johnson has just clarified for me –the use of the Hebrew word nephesh as distinct from the word bara. Bara refers to what God created ex nihilo and in toto on Days One and Three –signifying the inanimate particles and elements and light of Day One and the vital principle of plants on Day Three. But the word – nephesh –is reserved for sensate life and for man’s rational soul. The unique character of rationality as added to the sensate or sense life of the animals, is signified by man’s soul being made in God’s image and likeness, (Gen.1:26-27).

 

 

Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

 

 

I do not see any least cause for disagreement about the plants! On the contrary, the article in the April issue of Acts and Facts, on the biochemistry of plants, abundantly demonstrates the processes of their vital principle – what the medieval termed a vegetative or merely nutritive “soul” – distinct from the sensitive “soul” of animals, with the five senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. In many cases, as we all know, the animals have much keener senses than humans. It is man’s rational soul –his intellect and freedom of will, that sets him above the animals – but also, just below the Angels. He thus fills a gap in the great Chain of Being, the Hierarchy of Reality – that leads to God – Who transcends all the Categories of His creation – but at the same time, has constituted Himself as Our Final, as well as our First Efficient Cause for, as St. Augustine said to Him, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” And this rest or peace, comes to us all with the life of Divine Grace, the Supernatural Order of Divine Grace, which also, must be distinguished from our natural – physical life. For it depends upon our free will, whether or not we accept this new life of Divine Grace, of the Divine Intimacy, whereby, we come to know Him as He wishes to be known – keeping the First Commandment to love Him above all things with our whole heart and mind and strength of being.

 

 

We are His possessions, first of all by Creation and secondly, by Redemption. Read the Collect for the Ninth Prophecy of the Easter Vigil. (Page 18 of this blog article.) We have this double reason to love Him – Who has first loved us. What the false science of evolutionism seems to have accomplished is this: it has taken over the entire natural order of Reality. This is the proper domain of the natural sciences, beginning with physics and chemistry. This is the area, too, in which the Protestant Creationists have been particularly timid, mainly because of their commitment to Copernicanism. I think they are at least beginning to see that geocentrism is an intrinsically necessary part of Creation Science - and because it is necessary for the science, it must also be necessary for the metaphysics and the theology. Truth is One and there can be no contradictions within the harmonious whole that is Reality. But that today an evolutionary world-view dominates the entire natural order of things - not to mention its disastrous effects on theology - certainly goes a long way in explaining the lack of a moral sense in so many people and especially in the young. Combine the educational system and the electronic media, and you have a cultural mind-shaper such as the world has never known.

 

 

Some speculate, (myself among them), that before the Flood, the Canaanites had also a highly developed technology that helps to explain the "violence" and "wickedness" of men that provoked God to wipe them out with the cleansing waters of the Deluge. But it will be by fire the next time, as St. Peter warns us. The thing about technology is that it makes use of the real processes of nature - especially of the elements, in order to fabricate so many artificial products. I am confronted at every meal here in the nursing home, with artificial sweeteners and butters. Also with de-natured milk - for safety reasons, I realize. But at the same time, it all demonstrates that Lucifer, that chief of all the rebellious Angels, continues in his major project - which is to be as "like God" as possible by imitating God's perfect, natural creations with his demonically inspired imitations.

 

 

Now, in the middle ages, men and women imitated God's "making" by producing works of art never since equaled in beauty and even in their usefulness. For the Cathedrals of Europe, for example, have never been surpassed in their beauty, and they still serve as the best places of worship that any civilization can offer. (Consult the many scholarly works on this subject for verification.) All this was lost with the rise of the new science of Descartes and Sir Francis Bacon. Bacon even based his new science of the useful on a mockery of the Six Days of Genesis. But it is a mockery - exalting his Masonic "merchants of light". This is an area of the occult that needs to be exposed as the counterfeit it is, so that the truths of the real Creation Science and Cosmology will be able to shine forth as the real "splendor of Truth" we have inherited from the Tradition of the Past.

 

 

Going back to Hugh of St. Victor - or maybe it was St. Ambrose - who said that all the history of the world revolves around the two great events of the Creation and the Incarnation. Those who have the privilege of daily Mass, recognize this great mystery every day and praise God for it when we pray the second prayer of the offertory: "O God, Who in creating human nature hast wonderfully ennobled it, but still more wonderfully has restored it.." - echoing the collect of the Ninth Prophecy of the Easter Vigil....."Grant that by the mystical union of this water and wine, we may be made partakers in His Divine Nature, Who hast vouchsafed to become partaker of our human nature..."

 

 

How is it that Traditionalists continue to ignore the unity of these two great historical events? This is, indeed, a mystery of iniquity and can only be a sign of the Great Apostasy of 2 Thessalonians 2:3-10.

 

 

Kyrie, Eleison!

The Angelic Hierarchy also stretches from earth to heaven, the tenth sphere or Empyrean, as its choirs perform their appointed tasks as guardians of human souls, of towns, cities, countries and continents, as well as of seas and other significant places varying according to the historical era or event.

            Then there are the very special appointments of those angels who keep all the celestial bodies in their proper places and movements.  When the universe is envisioned in this was, as one tremendous place or body wherein all the parts function under the direction of the one substantial form that is the universe and in which all the parts and their constituent elements are inherent accidental forms, the metaphysical principles ensuring the most  marvelously cohesice unity is seen to be very plain and almost self-evident.

            Earth is very special as being the place for the only other corporeal substantial forms given existence in the order of creation, during the first six days of the world.

            The angelic hosts resemble mankind or human nature in that each angel shares the purely spiritual angelic—rational nature of intellect and will.  But since the angel has no physical matter to individuate it, each angel is equivalent to a specific substantial form; whereas, we humans have physical matter to distinguish us as individuals, plus individual differences that extend even to our individual chemistry and atomic shapes!

            It has been said that the potency, the material possibilities just for different combinations of amino acids, is virtually infinite.  It is in these kinds of ways that God’s own infinite nature is reflected in His creation.  However, there cannot be two infinites.  Our universe remains a finite being for all its virtually infinite possibility. This is what the prime matter of the form of the universe is.  Remember, the created universe is a holomorphic being consisting of act and potency, matter and form, with substances and accidents.  The matter of the universe is prime and finite, but seems to us humans, viewing the marvelous diversity of creatures, to be virtually infinite.

            I often see pictures (as on EWTN) of Our Lord holding a large globe in His hand.  It is often surmounted by a cross.  That globe is not the Earth. The globe is the universe.  The universe was the first substantial form, created on day one, when the Holy Spirit tells us that “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.”

            The Greek word is cosmos, and thanks to reviewer Robert J. Rolfes, Jr., writing in the New Oxford Review (May, 2013, pp.46-48), we are warned of the very ominous Russian cosmists gaining influence carrying the occult “New Age” aspects of evolutionism to new and horrific depths.  Kyrie, eleison!

            Please note that technological progress does not proceed by evolutionary processes as described by that ideology’s professors.  Evolutionary “progress” moves by the fictional choices of the equally functional “god” of evolution, “natural selection.”  Technology, on the other hand, proceeds by the real discoveries of real and really intelligent choices by real scientists.  For example, using the extreme versatility of atomic structures, scientists can make (not create, but make) molecules and artificial materials such as plastics that possess qualities that the natural molecules do not have.  This is technological “progress” and is happening all the time in all the fields of science, but especially in physics and chemistry when artificial products are manufactured.

            In fact, one of the great evils of this modern technology is that all the sciences have apparently no other goal in the minds of the scientists than to be put to some practical use.  This is in direct opposition to the original goal of all science, as practiced by the Greeks, Romans and medieval, which was wisdom, the contemplation of Truth.  This is why there was no noteworthy advance in technology by the ancient and medieval worlds.  They correctly preferred the goal and purpose of wisdom.

            The Introit for Pentecost Sunday quotes the seventh verse of the first chapter of the Book of Wisdom: “The Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world, and that which containeth all things hath knowledge of the Voice.”  I suggest that this hoc quore continent Omnia is the Body of the universe or cosmos, as described in our Catholic cosmology.

            This is an object worthy, I think, of meditation and contemplation, but of no practical or technological use that I can see . . . .

The knowledge of the logical relations of sentences, or in logic, propositions, had to be present in the language because the art and science of logic relates first of all to grammar and only higher up, in the more advanced modes of discourse, does logic become a more flexible tool and at the same time more precise and more complex (See this writer’s works on the modes of discourse).

            Without this knowledge of language, human nature would not be complete.  But the Order of Creation established during the first six days of the world, contained only perfect, that is, complete beings, each one complete and perfect in its kind.  This was the Hierarchy of Being, of reality, from the lowliest particles and elements to the highest of the angelic Seraphim finished, just as Genesis 2:1 says:  “So the Heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them.”

            Moreover, “God saw all the things that He had made, and they were very good” (Gen. 1:31).  That was at the end of the sixth day.  And this is the origin of man, of Adam and Eve, our first parents who were far and above intellectually and physically any human pair since or will be—except Our Divine Lord Jesus Christ and His Immaculate Mother Mary.

            I hope the reader sees here also the origin of language—the one language from which all others have grown or devolved.  And all mankind had but one language until, in the pride of their own excellence, they decided to build a tower in their city, the top of which would reach to heaven, but God prevented their plan from being fulfilled by “confounding” their speech.  Thus they were forced to scatter over the earth in their newly realized languages. That is the origin of the different languages.

            Historians today still claim the original Indo-European contains vestiges of the original language.  So when human beings compose poems, or make speeches, or try to describe and define the objects of the various sciences, they impose certain forms upon language.  The forms are accidental forms made of language and language is an accidental      form inhering in the substantial form of a speaking human being.

            I like to compare the elements of language with the atomic elements of physical matter.  Thinks of the universe as a huge thing, or better, a gigantic form in which the earth is in a very special place situated at the very center of the universe.  As the word universe indicates, it is one huge circular being with the Earth at its center.  From this center there is a vertical hierarchy of beings that form concentric circles or spheres as they radiate outward and upward in the transparent spheres made of the elements of fire and light.

            Envisioned as a universe in this way, it is easy and even obvious that all the parts—earth, water, air and fire—constituted of the atomic elements and performing their proper functions—are but accidental form of the substantial form—that is the Body of the Universe.

            Earth as the central part or even the Heart of this great body, is unique in being the place, the huge habitat for the substantial forms of the plant and animal kingdoms, as well as for mankind also.

These created causes or agents of reproduction in this order of generation, do in no sense create.  There merely transmit forms created during the first six days. It is even a misnomer to speak of mankind’s artistic activity as “creative” or “creating” because human artist must necessarily make use of already created materials, such as wood, metals, stones and for the most part, already made materials, that are mad by man (artist’s paint, brushes, and canvases for example). Man merely makes; he does not create.

            It is a very interesting and most instructive exercise in the principles of metaphysics and the natural sciences, to trace all such materials to their substantial forms.  And this will inevitably bring the seeker after truth in the realm of Being, to the difference and distinctions between substantial forms.  This distinction is real and is absolutely necessary for a true cosmology, the only kind that can truly be termed Catholic, that is, as coming from God, from His Holy Spirit, especially from His gifts of knowledge, understanding and wisdom.

            So let’s start with the example of the literary construct, since all of us use language in some way every day. Also, we must confront and solve the ideological, evolutionary objection that the origin of language is explainable as a natural process.

            We must answer:  Science itself proves, by all the criteria of its own method, namely testability as the main one mentioned by Father Spitzer, that language is a given. Just like our existence, as real and our identity as human, having intellect and free will, language comes with being human with only this one proviso:  it must be learned from another human or higher kind of being with intellect and free will.

            Now suppose we consider the evolutionist’s position.  We are told (especially by novelists such as Jean Auel and her cave bear clan) that the first humans developed language from the grunts and gestures of their animal partners.  However, studies of feral children (like Tarzan and Mowgli) have empirically proven by repeated tests with feral children that they never really do learn to communicate with words that they did not learn by hearing in their very early years when most children do actually begin to imitate the words they hear spoken by the people around them. 

            The facts may be explained this way” Just as God created beavers replete with the knowledge of how to build their dams, and the spiders the know-how of web-construction, and the birds how to build their nests, so, too, died He create or form Adam and Eve, fully grown and mature, replete with a language appropriate to the world into which He placed them.  Thus, Adam was able to name all the animals and birds when God presented them to him (Genesis 2:18-20).

            Evolutionist simply cannot explain these things by any natural means.  The only answer is creation.  Only after fully formed and functional, mature adults were created, ex nihilo and in toto (as to form) were the processes of developmental and generational, that is, reproductive functions able to begin.  This demonstrates, also, the absolute necessity for the first six literal twenty-four hour days.

            It may seem odd that language is not an essential property of the human being, as much as are the intellect and the will; however, reflection reveals that language flows directly, but not necessarily as spoken language, from our intellectual nature.  People born deaf and mute, for example, learn to communicate with a system of hand signals or signs.  Helen Keller, born blind, deaf, and mute, eventually learned to communicate in a way that is intellectually, as opposed to an animal.  All of proves the substantial difference, the difference in Kind, between mankind and any other kind of animal.

            Let it be emphasized that language is a conventional system of sounds and meanings. Conventional means a community of persons who possess an agreed upon system of sounds and meanings.  The meanings are spiritual concepts in the minds of the persons speaking; but the concepts are abstractions of the natures of the things in external reality, the real world (see the writer’s “The Cognitive Loop” or consult any good Thomistic book on epistemology).  The concept is derived from the data of sense knowledge.  “All of our knowledge comes first through the senses.”  So what about the origin of language?

            It had to be in Adam and Eve, and according to Genesis 1-2, it was first in Adam because he named the animals before Eve was made from his side.  I can hear objections from all sides and I have been hearing them for some years now.  I’ve written my own answers gleaned from St. Thomas mainly.

            To the question:  How long was it before Adam’s fell, how many days after he was created?  My opinion differs sharply from the French scholar Ferdinand Crombette (d. 1970) and his followers. I answer it could have been after several day, but it could have been weeks before Lucifer, disguised as a Seraph (see Egyptian mythological figure of the angelic “god”) gained entrance into the Garden of Eden.          

            But this passage of time does not preclude the events of Adam’s naming the animals and the making of Eve both on day six.  In fact, I believe it to be necessary because the state of original justice innocence requires it—or to speak more correctly—the state of original justice and innocence required that both Adam and Eve, from the very first moment of each one’s existence were possessed of a complete language.  This means an instinctive knowledge—not learned but infused—by God, which included the correct syllables, words, sentences with correct grammatical construction and both having an intuitive knowledge of the different modes of discourse and their logic.

It seems necessary, in order to obey the most fundamental principles of Metaphysics (also called first philosophy by Aristotle) to hold that earth, water, air, and fire, which includes light—in other words, to hold that all of matter, here Prime Matter, and the first substantial form were the one, entire Universe created on day one and described in Genesis One, verses 1 through 5.

            On day three, God created the various kinds of plants and in these were included the bara-min or created kind taxonomists now specify as trees bearing fruit.

            But as I have tried to explain in previous studies, all substantial forms of the plant, animal, and even mankind, are not substantial in an absolute sense because of their necessary dependence upon the earth and earth’s atmosphere of sunlight and hear for their very life.

            So there are substantial forms and necessarily so, and as we know with certitude by the Principle of Identity (with all the other First Principles); but these substantial forms are only relatively so; whereas the Universe of Prime Matter and First Form is absolutely so but under God’s domain.

            The Angelic Hierarchy is even more substantial in its angelic specific forms than the universe because all the angels are totally free of all the constraints of matter. They are closest to God in the Hierarchy; and yet, they too are absolutely dependent upon God for their very existence—as is every other creature created during the first Six Day of the world.

            I hope the reader sees from this brief exposition how it is that every miracle, and even every thing now in existence, presupposes the entire natural order created from the beginning.  It may seem odd to think of earth, water, air, and fire—light, as mere accidents of a larger substance, the Universe; but the metaphysical necessity for it becomes clear when they are analyzed in terms of their atomic elements.

            This is a marvelous field of study and contemplation, increasing one’s appreciation of God as Creator and the attributes that necessarily flow from His very existence.  Just to see the intricacy of the cycles of the elements from earth—water to the celestial realms of light and heat, both before and after the universal Flood, is marvelous beyond human understanding.

            And yet, it is the established natural order of all things created during the First Six Days of the world.  It is this established order that miracles temporarily suspend, or, as in the case of cures and healings, speed up to an instantaneous process, and so presuppose the creation of perfect forms.

             Creation is, therefore, something infinitely greater than a miracle. And in fact, everything, even our very existence, presupposes creation by God; therefore, to live in denial as God’s Act or Creation—for creation by God is not a process but an instantaneous, rather atemporal, i.e., absolutely transcendent act—to live in denial of God’s gift of existence as well as of essential identity (essence) is to live in denial of reality—and that is insanity.

            Secondary Causality is so named because it always and absolutely, which is to say necessarily presupposes God’s First and Primary Efficient and Final (purpose) causality.  All of this is so true indeed, infallibly and at the highest level explained by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Five Was for proving God’s existence (ST, I, q. 2, a 3).  There is simply no better and no other way of doing this necessary task, given St. Paul’s remark in Romans 1:20—that men are without any excuse for denying God’s existence and His attributes, because the things that God has made, speak of Him by their very made-ness.

            No one in St. Paul’s time or in any other time after the first week of the world was present for Creation, that is, to witness God’s acts of Creation, and an act is not a process. And we insist on the literal twenty-four-hour day, the days that have continued sense. 

            Except for the angels who, as several Scriptural verses attest, were most probably present for days two through seven on onward, in their special domain of aeviternity; therefore, even though the first and primary causality (efficient and final) is always necessarily present by His power of maintaining creatures in existence, still the evidence of a Creator—God—is plain, is clearly seen, as St. Paul says, from “the things that are made.”  And such things were and still are, the products—not of Creation ex nihilo and in toto, during the Six Days but of secondary causes, that is, of creatures that are substantial (not accidental) forms given the power of agency by the Creator when He said, “According to its kind” for every living form, to “increase and multiply” (Genesis one, verses 22, 28); that is, to transmit the given and created and immutable substantial form of the created kind—to transmit it by generation, that is, by reproduction. And this is the work of secondary causes.