ThomasJMullally #85
Reason is not God-given,
False. With such a profound error, no wonder so much of the feeling is skewed.
ENCYCLICAL LETTER FIDES ET RATIO OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAITH AND REASON
tinyurl.com/46wut
“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27:8-9; 63:2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 Jn 3:2).
“Once reason successfully intuits and formulates the first universal principles of being and correctly draws from them conclusions which are coherent both logically and ethically, then it may be called right reason or, as the ancients called it, orthós logos, recta ratio.
“5. On her part, the Church cannot but set great value upon reason’s drive to attain goals which render people’s lives ever more worthy. She sees in philosophy the way to come to know fundamental truths about human life. At the same time, the Church considers philosophy an indispensable help for a deeper understanding of faith and for communicating the truth of the Gospel to those who do not yet know it.”
1998, St John Paul II.
“Although the knowledge of the natural order
may be aided by revelation, reason
must always be employed in the discovery of such knowledge.”
Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 38].
It is only a SYSTEM, value-free, man-made
The continued ignorance here is stupefying. It is only the application of free enterprise principles which has enabled so many millions to be raised above rank poverty. It is high time to listen to the revered Fr James V Schall, S.J., and learn of the reduction in poverty through free enterprise.
Do Christians Love Poverty?
August 16, 2013
Insisting that the only thing the poor need is bread consigns them to a world without signs of transcendence.
James V. Schall, S.J.
Extract:
‘Whenever someone, religious or secular, tells us that he wants to “identify” with the poor, especially someone who has little clue about the causes of wealth and poverty, we can suspect that the poor are being used as a cloak to justify a political or personal agenda that needs careful examination.
‘In the course of history, two kinds of poverty, as it were, have been distinguished. In part, this distinction had to with the meaning of what we now call works of “charity.” That is, some people are poor because of natural or accidental defects in intelligence or health, whereby it was impossible for them to care for themselves and their own interests. Someone else had to care for them at least in part. This group was really what Aristotle meant by “slaves,” people by nature or accident who were unable to care for themselves.
‘The other group contained those who could care for themselves if they had an opportunity to do so. Ideally, they would be able to get themselves out of poverty if they lived in a place or in a system that allowed or encouraged them to do so. Not every economic or political system can or will do this.
‘Much of world poverty has in fact been reduced or alleviated, as a recent essay in *The Economist *has shown. Christians often seem not to know that this change has happened or why it happened.’
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tinyurl.com/ldjt6go]](
http://tinyurl.com/ldjt6go])
Neither of these quotations says a SINGLE THING endorsing free enterprise or natural law as you claim is somehow exhibited in free enterprise.
“The Late Scholastics derived their ethical approach from the Thomist concept of the interrelatedness of natural law, ethics and economics.” (
Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 36-37).
Just as Christ’s Parable of the Talents most strikingly acknowledges Christ’s respect for the work of business, so does the Parable of the Dishonest Steward – the steward is dishonest, “but the nature of his work is not. In fact by praising his shrewdness, Christ admires his opportunism. While the steward abuses the trust his master extends to him, it must be recognised that the nature of the work that is entrusted to him is fundamentally good. The sin of the steward is his misuse of his master’s business, not the work of business itself.”
Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 47].
That Jesus of Nazareth specifically shows us the value of energy, alertness, and perseverance in making a truly significant profit and looks with love on upon human work and that the work of the merchant – the businessman or the entrepreneur – is one of the forms of work that is affirmed. The parable of the talents makes this clear by its reference to money, trading, risk taking and banking. Laziness and avoiding risks and obstacles are condemned, so that the lessons for the spiritual life and attaining salvation are starkly revealed by these truisms.
