Friday, July 16, 2004
"Everything Harry Mudd Tells You is a Lie"
My Dear Philothea,
Here below is an article that gives the essence of the matter of the problem in the Church and in the world. To the modernist mind, Ratzinger's "no, you may not give Kerry Communion," is not opposed to the McCarrick's "yes, you may give Kerry Communion." This is the reason the first lesson I teach in the confirmation class is the logical principle of non-contradiction. It is the pin-point fulcrum upon which our civilization rests and having eradicated it, the wrecking crew is bull-dozing without opposition.
There's that word again...'opposition'. In the Vatican II, Personally-Opposed-But world 'opposition' is a non-concept. I remember being told that certainly, non-contradiction was an important principle of logic, but that logic didn't end there, there was more to it, there were elaborations, developments, nuances.
My opposition to opposition was supposed to stop there, but non-contradiction stepped in again. How could the principle of non-contradiction incorporate ideas that contradicted it? Here was the problem again. "Sure non-contradiction is an operative principle in philosophy, but once you move beyond it, non-contradiction no longer applies." Matter and anti-matter can co-exist. Yes and no do mean the same thing, I can be both right and wrong about non-contradiction, if I am nuanced enough, sophisticated enough.
Clever enough.
Clever enough apparently to both know and not know the thing I know about the principle of non-contradiction. Clever enough to decide that the doorway and the wall are the same thing, and clever enough not to break my nose when I decide that for me the wall is the doorway. Or perhaps, clever enough to have my nose be both broken and not broken when I have both walked through the wall and banged into it.
I have regrettably encountered the same phenomenon. Quite often, I'm afraid. It's enough to drive one to a) despair b) pondering the consumption of large amounts of alcohol c) repeating steps a) through b).
ReplyDeleteOf course, as St Thomas said, if someone does not accept the Principle of Non-Contradiction, do not waste your breath talking to them about the Faith, or even about reason and logic. You will accomplish nothing. Brush the dirt from your sandals and move on.
A pity that his advice now applies to the majority of what was once called Christendom.
But Father,
ReplyDeletethat's everyone.
If we followed that rule, we'd have to give up entirely.