On Thursday the 28th of Jan, the Memorial of St. Thomas Aquinas, Fr Mitch Pacwa preached a very intriguing homily on EWTN. He said that Grammar and Logic are interrelated and St Thomas realized this. I am hoping some of you out there heard the homily and might steer me to some reading materials so I can study up on this. I am in the Army and I know that the ability to write things clearly is an indicator of how clearly one thinks. I have a dear colleague whose unclear thinking is accurately reflected in her poor grammar. Is there anyone out there with some reading suggestions? Thanks in advance!
Touchstone answered this question very well.
I’ll add also, that from what I’m gathering from your comment, its seems to be presupposed that bad grammar is a consequence, product or is an indicator of a unclear thinking mind. This is not necessarily true, as it is not true in all cases.
There are a lot of unsettled, unclear-thinking, restless minds who write with extraordinarily good grammar or that of a scholastic standard. Take the likes of all those perverted modern philosophers, psychoanalysts and even in the Church, the liberal (heretic) theologians. Some of the most learned literary figures had wonderful grammar but the most disastrous and fallacious ideas.
Literary grammar, is another ideological construct with set rules and principles, that as a system uses the (name removed by moderator)ut and arrangement of words and characters to convey meaning. Logic is the same, except that as a set styled system it only expects to output a logical answer.
I suppose there is more to it, but I’ll leave that to the capable hands of Touchstone.
I’ve found personally, that it is not grammar that will make your mind more clear thinking though it helps, but it is the learning of critical analysis that will make the mind sharper as its sole aim is not to learn the set rules and principles that govern the proper formation and codification of ideas, but rather the pursuit of the complexity or depth of the idea that makes the mind sharper. One way to think of it is to see logic and grammar as merely the cup, vessel or container. Your grammar may be perfect almost like a gold chalice, though your ideas may be elementary like tap water. Or the opposite may be true. Your grammar may be as poor as an earthen-ware bowl, though your ideas may be as pleasing as fine wine, so to speak. In any case, it is not the vessel that is the gem, but the content, the ideas. Now this you will not get directly from grammar or logic - they merely serve to hold them. But it is from what I’ve learn’t to understand it as, being “critical thinking” or “critical analysis” in which the mind is literally made sharper. However, one must be weary of the modern theories that pervade much of the critical thinking world, as it is immersed in most criticisms which would rate as apostasies and heresies for us Catholics (i.e. feminism, Marxism, liberalism, modernism and the like).
What is critical analysis/thinking as I’ve adopted it (which might be different to the definition or understanding of the mainstream academic) is the system of questioning, very much like the Socratic method, in which one seeks to understand “the why”, like motivations or intentions as advancement upon already knowing the “what, how, when where”, in a way that refines to an impeccable point one’s understanding of a subject, idea or concept. Literally, asking why, why, and why; to the point where through evaluations and extrapolations, you are left with less error and doubt in your understanding and more clarity and truth to behold. This is because truth is not corrodible, therefore, the more you question (correctly) the more false hoods are bound to fall away. Kind of like cutting off dirt impurities from a diamond, or cleaning the glass surface of a dirty window.
What you must have is an understanding of set truths and principles, that are grounded in absolute truth (be it the Teachings of the Church), with this you would be able to study any modern subject without fear of contamination as you will compare and judge it back with your held Truths (they being theological) and you’ll be able to identity, discern and distinguish what is right, what is wrong, and deal with them appropriately. Being reject the bad and collect the good. If you don’t have a set of true beliefs or principles or ideas, then you will be “ravaged” and “raped” by so many false ideologies and beliefs out there which snares millions and millions of Catholics, such as relativism and indifferentism. That is why there are Catholics who believe that Christ isn’t present in the Eucharist, that abortion is not a sin, that homosexual relations is permissible. It’s because they were not critical of these ideas, maybe because they forgotten the truth, or they ignored and denied the set truths or likely because they never really learn’t or understood it in the first place. Or perhaps, they declined some of God’s holy inspirations and graces altogether.
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