Please explain

[Blue_Horizon]

Sorry, I don’t get it. If “creation” is defined as everything else, but God, then it is trivial to say that the creation points to God’s existence. But this definition of “created” is unacceptable, Something is called “created”, if it is not “natural”, if it is fabricated", “manufactured” or “artificial”. If “created” means: “everything” but God, then there is nothing “natural” and as such the phrase “created things” is an empty expression.

Well you have your own unusual vocab definitions but, if we humour your definitions, then your conclusion does seem to logically follow.

That is, God is the only “natural being” and all being/things created by God are artefacts.

However the Church tends to base its systemic concepts/defintions on those of Aristotle as interpreted by Aquinas who would prob see “nature” very differently from your good self.

Which is probably the root reason why you cannot easily understand Church formulations in this area. The other reason of course would be what Linus and the Church have been hinting at - you and I prob don’t have the intellectual horsepower to be convinced by first principles in this area. Hence the practical need for faith when it comes to monotheism.

In any case it seems we are not save by the certainty of either reason or faith when it comes to the existence of God. Even the fallen angels know of the existence of God with certainty (by reason alone).

 

[Hee_Zen]

Well you have your own unusual vocab definitions but, if we humour your definitions, then your conclusion does seem to logically follow.

I don’t think that the concept of “creation” as I use is something “esoteric”.We all consider Picasso as a very creative artist, even though he used existing materials to paint his pictures. Rodin’s beautiful sculptures are also viewed as the result of creative force, even though he “only” removed the superfluous material from a pre-existing piece of stone, and he did not create the stone itself ex-nihilo.

Which is probably the root reason why you cannot easily understand Church formulations in the Mensa level, and none of them agree (along with 99,99…% of everyday people) who reject is area. The other reason of course would be what Linus and the Church have been hinting at - you and I prob don’t have the intellectual horsepower to be convinced by first principles in this area. Hence the practical need for faith when it comes to monotheism.

I don’t know what level of intellectual horsepower are you talking about. There are many atheists (even on the Mensa level) who reject that the concept that “creation” is restricted to “ex nihilo creation”, which has never been observed or demonstrated, and which would violate one of the most thoroughly substantiated principle of physics, namely that that “matter / energy / momentum” cannot be created nor destroyed. I will stick with science and not with the hopelessly ignorant people like Aristotle or Aquinas, who might have been intellectual giants, but their level of knowledge did not reach the level of bright teenager of today.

See you in about 3 or 4 weeks. Best wishes.

 

[ynotzap]

There is a problem here. How does one define “perfection” in an abstract fashion? A perfect bullet would penetrate any shield, while the perfect shield would withstand any bullet. There is no “perfection” in a vacuum, one needs to specify “perfect in what respect?” and at that point we start to deal with subjective categories. God can’t be both perfectly good and perfectly evil.

Answer: Could a perfect bullet and a perfect shield exist at the same time? If the bullet is perfect it can penetrate any shield, if it can’t it isn’t perfect. If the shield is perfect it can stop any bullet, if it can’t it isn’t perfect. You can’t have both at the same time, to admit one, is to deny the other. These self-evident truths, the principle of contradiction are used to insure the accuracy of metaphysical conclusions, there are more, These principles of logic will always remain true, and time will not effect them because they take their existence from the Eternal Universal Truth A thing is perfect relative to how much is participates in being, or existence. Perfection in all respects means without defect or omission, flawless, Perfection is Pure, Total Being, this is God. It is impossible for God to be evil in any respect. And God wouldn’t be God if He lacked Total Being. Evil is defined as the absence of good, not as something positive in itself, just as darkness is the absence of light

Science can’t destroy matter, did they ever reason why?. Is there such a thing as a perfect vacuum, a space with nothing in it, and if there is nothing in the space how could nothing exist to take up the space, any scientific answers? Some scientists takes a lot for granted, I speak of modern empirical scientists, not the science, but those that represent it. Do we actually know the definition of science? Some may, and some do not. And how does one avoid being subjective in order to be objective? Subjectivity is relying on concepts that rely not on objective reality, but upon imagination and personal opinion, which is a poor criterion for being in contact with reality and accuracy, and truth.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I don’t think that the concept of “creation” as I use is something “esoteric”.We all consider Picasso as a very creative artist, even though he used existing materials to paint his pictures. Rodin’s beautiful sculptures are also viewed as the result of creative force, even though he “only” removed the superfluous material from a pre-existing piece of stone, and he did not create the stone itself ex-nihilo.

I didn’t say it was esoteric, I essentially said you define creation and nature idiosyncratically. Doing that you can come up with any number of strange sounding conclusions that are probably logically consistent.

But if you want to discuss Catholic teaching/principles on a Catholic Forum I suggest you start out with the sort of definition directions I pointed you towards. If you do that you will also find that we are logically consistent too.

I will stick with science and not with the hopelessly ignorant people like Aristotle or Aquinas, who might have been intellectual giants, but their level of knowledge did not reach the level of bright teenager of today.

Yes we already came to the conclusion that you came here to teach us from your youthful brilliance and vanity. That’s OK, most of us oldies were once like you so we can put up with this so long as you are polite.
Unfortunately you just crossed the border of respect for us…and for yourself.
So expect to be ignored if you decide to come back in three weeks.

BTW if you are going to quote me please quote what get’s finally posted here not my re-edited thoughts or possibly paraphrased summary from your own hand.

 

[inocente]

There is a problem here. How does one define “perfection” in an abstract fashion? A perfect bullet would penetrate any shield, while the perfect shield would withstand any bullet. There is no “perfection” in a vacuum, one needs to specify “perfect in what respect?” and at that point we start to deal with subjective categories. God can’t be both perfectly good and perfectly evil.

That’s what I meant about coming up against the limits of language. God can’t be both perfectly short and perfectly tall either. We can try to get overcome the problem by saying God is neither, or by saying evil must be the opposite of perfection, or whatever.

Or perhaps the real problem is that words fail to convey all we intend when we use abstract concepts such as ‘perfection’.

*Some people say that God’s attributes need to be understood allegorically. They use the example that we speak of a dog’s loyalty, which is not the same as human loyalty. They say that the dog is loyal according to his nature, while humans are loyal according to human nature. They have something like “A is to B” as “C is to D”. But in order to “solve” this, one needs to have 3 of these 4 variables known, and then we can resolve the fourth. To wit: “human love is to human nature like God’s love is to God’s nature”. And here we have TWO unknowns, God’s love and God’s nature - so the equation is unsolvable.

Let me explain. There is a human concept called: “God”. Many people say that this concept has no “referent” in reality, because the concept is problematic. The concept needs to defined precisely in order to have a meaningful conversation. Maybe the concept does not reflect the “true God” accurately, that is possible. But the concept is a human concept, and as such it needs a clear and precise definition. *

Isn’t that just a generic problem with many concepts though? Google tells me that “evil” = profoundly immoral and wicked, and wicked = evil or morally wrong. The definitions form infinite loops, because words can only lead to other words. But if you think of something that you find intensely evil, I suggest you won’t find the meaning in words, it’s non-verbal, ultimately words fail.

Romantic love is the result of certain chemicals in the brain, which can be invoked by adding these chemicals artificially. Only poets try to make it mysterious.

I bet you don’t really believe that. Love = chemicals has no explanatory power at all, it makes it totally mysterious. Why do we feel so bad after a breakup? Chemicals. Why would we stay together for always? Chemicals. Why do you write posts? Chemicals. Why do we live or die? Chemicals.

It tells us nothing. We can’t explain it in terms of elementary particles, or chemicals, or cells. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I share the emotion that the pattern is beautiful, but it still is a direct corollary of “1 + 1 = 2”… which does not make it less beautiful, but not “mysterious”.

There you go then, you just said it’s not just chemicals. Is beauty only in the eye of the beholder, or does it exist objectively? I’m thinking of stuff such as the golden mean.

 

[inocente]

When speaking of emotional response many people I believe have the wrong notion of what an emotion is. they often identify it with just feelings of different intensities and don’t seem to give much thought to the spiritual part, the apprehension, or comprehension. But for every emotion there are two parts, one physical, one intellectual (spiritual) as is appropriate to human nature, the union of body and soul. In the emotion of fear, one first must apprehend a dangerous situation, eg. a head-on collision with another car and what can happen. That is the spiritual part. Then the physical part the body undergoes changes, muscles tighten, adrenaline increases, breathing become rapid , heart rate increases, preparing the body for the expectancies. Similarly the emotion of love must

apprehend a situation that evokes feeling of various intensities, the more appealing, the more perfect, the more pleasing the more attraction, the more desirous ,the more pleasure it evokes will determine the intensity of the physical reaction, so that the range of the emotion can be from a mild pleasant reaction to ecstacy, depending on the revelation to the human mind first. In each person whether they recognize it or not, there is a spiritual attraction to beauty, to the perfect, to harmony, to order, to the aesthetic , in reality a desire for God who is all of these qualities, We Catholics have been exposed to the convictions of our Faith, and in the process the sentiments of our Faith has been lacking, this is not to say we don’t have some but we do emphasize that the convictions are the most important, and they are, so much so that some of the faithful have crucified their sentiments and died for the convictions of our Faith. Jesus always expressed the

sentiments and the convictions. He wept, He felt sorrow, He responded to the hunger of people, their illnesses, their anxieties, to all their needs and He suffered the crucifixion of His body, the source of His feelings for the love of Humanity. To be wholly human is to experience convictions and feelings, even though we may suffer one or the other alone. When we tend to become too intellectual we may become to “angelized” and not “humanized” St.Theresa of Avilla stated that when it comes to the practice of virtue, some can scale the shear face of the mountain of perfection, but as for her (a spiritual giant in her right) that she preferred the “trip around the mountain, where there were an occasional oasis ( spiritual consolations which involved feelings). One can find love, and happiness in the contemplation of the beauty found in creation especially when it leads to God, it’s Creator, and when the Creator touches you, and says “I love you” to me there is not greater joy and love. But how can we love, if we do not know Him? Love always demands knowledge. He sets out enticements if we know what to look for, some found enticements but don’t understand their purpose, they content themselves with the enticements. The ability to know something without conscious reasoning is called :Intuition. There is “intuitive truth” the human soul is stamped by God with this ability, so can we say with St.Paul :that” we have no excuse"?

I agree with most of that, with perhaps two exceptions.

The first is that I’m not a dualist, or at least try not to be, and so wouldn’t make a distinction between the physical and what you call the spiritual aspect, since I don’t see how they can be separated. For instance, I think we couldn’t feel fear in the absence of the adrenaline and so on, to me they are essential for fear to exist.

In your terms then, you define emotion as having a physical and an intellectual (spiritual) part, and so God’s love isn’t an emotion, since there is no physical part. In my terms, our emotion of love can’t exist without the physicality, so God’s love isn’t an emotion. Either way I think we end up in much the same place, while those who say reality is only what can be objectively measured end up somewhere else.

The other point where we may differ is when you say “But how can we love, if we do not know Him?” Is it true that love is proportional to how many books we read about God? I don’t think it is. Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” It’s possible that the more knowledge we think we have, the further away we get.

Also, God isn’t a passive subject, we shouldn’t forget grace - “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever - the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."

Or possibly us Baptists are just not very highbrow.

 

[inocente]

The one-line dismissal is par for the course, when there is no rational argument.

Will see you in about 3 weeks. Won’t have internet access on the Transatlantic trip from Barcelona to Miami. Barcelona is still beautiful, especially the buildings of Gaudi… the Sangria Familia will be awesome when completed. (No, sangria was not a typo ) Best wishes!

I’ve not seen it for a while, Barcelona is quite a distance from here. You used to be able to get to the top of one of the unfinished towers, no safety barriers, but I suppose health and safety has put an end to that.

Your ship sounds a bit last century if it has no satellite internet. What is it, US Navy?

Buen viaje.

 

[inocente]

As usual you twist what one says into something unrecognizable in order to defend an indefensable ideology. My response was not an insult, you said nothing substantive, you just hurreled demeaning opinions. I can cope with Lucy just fine, it is Lucy that is getting upset because Charlie insists on sticking to the truth of the matter. I did not say the CCC needed to be rewritten and you did not prove it needed to be. You pointed out an incongruency which I admitted appeard to be there. I admitted that the statement should have been made more clear, I offered several possible explanations and for that you accuse me of saying the CCC needed to be rewritten and insult me for refusing to answer.

So who is in a bad mood Sis? So stay tuned.

I will add that your peculiar position on intellectual proofs for the existence of God, or just proofs based on simple reason are pecular to an attitude that was not present among Christians prior to the Reformation. This also applies to your views on the natural moral law. And that attitude was taken up by the leaders of the Enlightenment led by the atheists of the day and has become the intellectual basis for the secular, agnostic culture of today.

We’re doomed, doomed I tells thee. Civilization has come to an end, things ain’t wot they used to be, it’s a disasterscope.

Regarding the CCC, you said: “I think the authors have expressed something poorly or perhaps the proof readers missed something ( there is a later edition, at least one ), or perhaps the translation is poor. I lean to the latter. So what could the quoted sentence mean? I think one has to say that what the authors are trying to say, but said poorly, is …]”

Whereas I read what is actually written in the CCC, and stuck by it, and didn’t want to change it. But apparently my attitude “was taken up by the leaders of the Enlightenment led [sic] by the atheists of the day and has become the intellectual basis for the secular, agnostic culture of today”.

If you’re correct, and the intellectual basis for the secular, agnostic culture of today is to respect what authors write instead of trying to put words in their mouths, then I think said culture is doing very well. God has a plan.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

We’re doomed, doomed I tells thee. Civilization has come to an end, things ain’t wot they used to be, it’s a disasterscope.

Regarding the CCC, you said: “I think the authors have expressed something poorly or perhaps the proof readers missed something ( there is a later edition, at least one ), or perhaps the translation is poor. I lean to the latter. So what could the quoted sentence mean? I think one has to say that what the authors are trying to say, but said poorly, is …]”

Whereas I read what is actually written in the CCC, and stuck by it, and didn’t want to change it. But apparently my attitude “was taken up by the leaders of the Enlightenment led [sic] by the atheists of the day and has become the intellectual basis for the secular, agnostic culture of today”

If you’re correct, and the intellectual basis for the secular, agnostic culture of today is to respect what authors write instead of trying to put words in their mouths, then I think said culture is doing very well. God has a plan.

I stand by what I said. Think what you want. Certain people have preconceived notions that cannot be changed.

II. Ways of Coming to Know God

31 Created in God’s image and called to know and love him, the person who seeks God discovers certain ways of coming to know him. These are also called proofs for the existence of God, not in the sense of proofs in the natural sciences, but rather in the sense of “converging and convincing arguments”, which allow us to attain certainty about the truth. These “ways” of approaching God from creation have a twofold point of departure: the physical world, and the human person.

32 The world: starting from movement, becoming, contingency, and the world’s order and beauty, one can come to a knowledge of God as the origin and the end of the universe.

As St. Paul says of the Gentiles: For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.7

And St. Augustine issues this challenge: Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky. . . question all these realities. All respond: “See, we are beautiful.” Their beauty is a profession [confessio]. These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One [Pulcher] who is not subject to change?8

33 The human person: with his openness to truth and beauty, his sense of moral goodness, his freedom and the voice of his conscience, with his longings for the infinite and for happiness, man questions himself about God’s existence. In all this he discerns signs of his spiritual soul. the soul, the “seed of eternity we bear in ourselves, irreducible to the merely material”,9 can have its origin only in God.

34 The world, and man, attest that they contain within themselves neither their first principle nor their final end, but rather that they participate in Being itself, which alone is without origin or end. Thus, in different ways, man can come to know that there exists a reality which is the first cause and final end of all things, a reality “that everyone calls God”.10

35 Man’s faculties make him capable of coming to a knowledge of the existence of a personal God. But for man to be able to enter into real intimacy with him, God willed both to reveal himself to man, and to give him the grace of being able to welcome this revelation in faith.(so) the proofs of God’s existence, however, can predispose one to faith and help one to see that faith is not opposed to reason.

III. The Knowledge of God According to the Church

36 "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God, the first principle and last end of all things, can be known with certainty from the created world by the natural light of human reason."11 Without this capacity, man would not be able to welcome God’s revelation. Man has this capacity because he is created “in the image of God”.12

37 In the historical conditions in which he finds himself, however, man experiences many difficulties in coming to know God by the light of reason alone:

Though human reason is, strictly speaking, truly capable by its own natural power and light of attaining to a true and certain knowledge of the one personal God, who watches over and controls the world by his providence, and of the natural law written in our hearts by the Creator; yet there are many obstacles which prevent reason from the effective and fruitful use of this inborn faculty. For the truths that concern the relations between God and man wholly transcend the visible order of things, and, if they are translated into human action and influence it, they call for self-surrender and abnegation. the human mind, in its turn, is hampered in the attaining of such truths, not only by the impact of the senses and the imagination, but also by disordered appetites which are the consequences of original sin. So it happens that men in such matters easily persuade themselves that what they would not like to be true is false or at least doubtful.13

38 This is why man stands in need of being enlightened by God’s revelation, not only about those things that exceed his understanding, but also “about those religious and moral truths which of themselves are not beyond the grasp of human reason, so that even in the present condition of the human race, they can be known by all men with ease, with firm certainty and with no admixture of error”.14

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

Pax
Linus2nd

---

 

[ynotzap]

I agree with most of that, with perhaps two exceptions.

The first is that I’m not a dualist, or at least try not to be, and so wouldn’t make a distinction between the physical and what you call the spiritual aspect, since I don’t see how they can be separated. For instance, I think we couldn’t feel fear in the absence of the adrenaline and so on, to me they are essential for fear to exist.

In your terms then, you define emotion as having a physical and an intellectual (spiritual) part, and so God’s love isn’t an emotion, since there is no physical part. In my terms, our emotion of love can’t exist without the physicality, so God’s love isn’t an emotion. Either way I think we end up in much the same place, while those who say reality is only what can be objectively measured end up somewhere else.

The other point where we may differ is when you say “But how can we love, if we do not know Him?” Is it true that love is proportional to how many books we read about God? I don’t think it is. Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” It’s possible that the more knowledge we think we have, the further away we get.

Also, God isn’t a passive subject, we shouldn’t forget grace - “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever - the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."

Or possibly us Baptists are just not very highbrow.

In knowing the elements involved doesn’t make one a dualist. Emotions are natural to man, as I stated, man is composed of body and soul, and emotion shows both characteristics as is appropriate to human nature. Even though we may not feel the effects of fear in the physical sense, we do know fear in the spiritual sense, we know what an accident can do to us and avoid it. There are dare-devils that even like the adrenaline rush, and they know what can happen. The knowledge precedes the feeling.

God’s love is spiritual, not even in the same league with physical love, but He humbled Himself took on human nature and experienced human love, both physical and spiritual. He gave Divine expression to human love in Jesus Christ who died for us. No greater love has man than to give his life for another. Love of God, and love of neighbor. If we love a God we can not see, how pure is that love, if we love God we can not feel, how pure is that love. Yet He also provided a way that we could feel Him,but it’s only through faith in His words, that is in the Holy Eucharist Real love resides in the Will, with it comes commitment, fidelity, sacrifice, unconditional acceptance, forgiveness, trust, belief, all of the virtues, and these are spiritual qualities. When married couples are dried up as prunes, and have no attractive physical characteristic in their old age, and yet love each other dearly, what elements makes this kind of love endure if it isn’t the goodness they recognized in each other, that element of God, who is Pure Goodness This objective love, not subjective based on one’s idea of love. The Catholic Church explains in the doctrine of original sin, that we suffer from a proclevity to sensual pleasure, called concupiscence meaning we submit to our feelings even when we know in our minds that it is the wrong thing to do. St. Paul expresses this warfare very clearly. He states the Jesus Christ is the answer to the problelm Feelings out of control. Look at the world situations, need I say more. Also great ignorance of the truth. We need the Savior, that’s why evangelization is so necessary, Jesus Christ is the Good News. To argue with those who appose is not to convert, only Jesus, God-man can do that, but to make a stand for what we believe and understand about our Christian Faith, that it is both reasonable and believable, one a product of reason, a pre-amble to faith, the other a "gift through Jesus Christ, God-man.

 

[ynotzap]

Even some low-brows become friendly with high-brows, if only for the riches the high-brows have, it’s human.

 

[ynotzap]

Even some low-brows become friendly with high-brows, if only for the riches the high-brows have, it’s human.

True love is proportional to the quality of books we read,not the quantity that make available our knowledge of God, the Bible is the main one, and then the books describing the experiences people had by living the teachings found in the Bible that led them to encounter with the God of the Bible. When one has this encounter gotten through the Word, love is the result, and it comes from knowledge of the Word, and if we don’t preach the word, how will they know, after all how do we know and love? Those that have this encounter are called Saints, people that practice Christian Faith, Hope and Love., all spiritual powers (virtues) Other books of quality are supplemental and can lead one in the right direction, when I say quality I speak of books that contain truth about our selves and the world around us, truth revealed by human reasoning and experience. All truth leads to God because it proceeds from Him

 

[inocente]

I stand by what I said. Think what you want. Certain people have preconceived notions that cannot be changed.

Do you mean those, like you, who refuse to accept what is written in the CCC?

 

[inocente]

True love is proportional to the quality of books we read,not the quantity that make available our knowledge of God, the Bible is the main one, and then the books describing the experiences people had by living the teachings found in the Bible that led them to encounter with the God of the Bible. When one has this encounter gotten through the Word, love is the result, and it comes from knowledge of the Word, and if we don’t preach the word, how will they know, after all how do we know and love? Those that have this encounter are called Saints, people that practice Christian Faith, Hope and Love., all spiritual powers (virtues) Other books of quality are supplemental and can lead one in the right direction, when I say quality I speak of books that contain truth about our selves and the world around us, truth revealed by human reasoning and experience. All truth leads to God because it proceeds from Him

There are a lot of Christian self-improvement books though. Apparently many find it hard to accept Grace, and read books in the hope it will make them worthy, but of course no one ever can be.

I’m wary of book-learning on this. Imho everything needed, as you alluded earlier, is in Christ dying for us. A favorite passage from Paul (1 Cor 1):

*For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”*

 

[ynotzap]

I als:thumbsup:

There are a lot of Christian self-improvement books though. Apparently many find it hard to accept Grace, and read books in the hope it will make them worthy, but of course no one ever can be.

I’m wary of book-learning on this. Imho everything needed, as you alluded earlier, is in Christ dying for us. A favorite passage from Paul (1 Cor 1):

*For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”*

:thumbsup:But I add, also truths, or reasons that point in the right direction, backed up by a Christian life. This is what St,Thomas did as well as other Christians. I also respect the efforts of others who respond to that desire within their souls to seek the truth for I am convinced it was put there by God.

 

[Hee_Zen]

I’ve not seen it for a while, Barcelona is quite a distance from here. You used to be able to get to the top of one of the unfinished towers, no safety barriers, but I suppose health and safety has put an end to that.

Your ship sounds a bit last century if it has no satellite internet. What is it, US Navy?

Buen viaje.

Ah, so easy to miscommunicate. The “Norwegian Epic” of course had satellite internet connection, but they change an amount which I was not willing to pay. It was a nice trip, though I collected some cold in the last few days, but such things happen. See you around I hope.