In -]battling the enemy/-] arguing with atheists, my apologetical weapon of first resort is the cosmological argument. The atheist’s apologetic defense of first resort is either denial, sophistry, deliberate misunderstanding, beating-around-the bush, or something of that sort which they can use to delude themselves into rejecting the argument, or, if they are somewhat more intelligent, they will raise the objection that I have not demonstrated that the Prime Mover/First Cause/Neccessary Being is synonymous with the Catholic understanding of Him. The first cannot be dealt with logically, and all we can do is pray. But as for the second, I’ve been browsing here and there (mostly around Edward Feser), but I have yet to find a complete summary of the path from the Cosmological Argument to the Sancta Romana Ecclesia. Anyone know any books or websites?
The textbooks I use for philosophy courses may be found in
www.fraternitypublications.com. Click on the philosophy tab, and the books by D.Q.McInerny are my favorites. Don’t know if he is related to Ralph McInerny of Fr. Dowling fame.
Fraternity Publications is the bookshop of the Fraternal Society of St. Peter, a traditional catholic religious organization. Note that I am not a member of the Fraternity. I am a layman.
It is not easy anymore to find good, thomistic books, which is why I am keeping those that I bought from years back. Also, I was able to collect a lot of used, but out-of-print books from
www.addall.com.
How about you? Do you have any favorite authors?
Well, one of my favorites is Edward Feser, I have a copy of the S.T. ( Black Friars Translation, England - great notes and commentary ), and most of his works are available for on line reading, Gilson - Elements of Christian Philosophy ( one of my favorites ), The Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, Henri Rahner - The Philosophy of Being and the Philosophy of God, Charles A Hart - Thomistic Metaphysics, Maurice R Holloway - An Introduction to Natural Theology, Peter Hoenen - Reality and Judgment, Raymond J Anable - Philosophical Psychology, Frederick D Wilhelmsen - Man’s Knowledge of Reality, George E Klubertanz - The Philosophy of Human Nature, Cardinal Mercier - Scholastic Philosophy Vols 1 & 2, all of Colpelston’s History of Philosophy, William A Wallace - The Elements of Philosophy & From a Realist Point of View ( He is 94 and still working
dominicanhistory.blogspot.com…an-priest.html ). Check him out, he is a real brain. And I have some odds and ends up stairs which aren’t important.
I think " The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas by John F. Wipple would be a good book to study.
You can back track my posts and threads for web sites on Thomas. If you don’t want to do that you can generally google St Thomas Aquinas or the Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas or " ( name subject ) in Thomas Aquinas. " For example, " participation " in Thomas Aquinas. " Try this last and you will see what I mean.
Good luck, but it is really a great waste of time. And limit yourself to 30 or 60 min a day because it is even more important to study St. Thomas and the more time you spend debating the less time you have for study. If you spend more than three hours a week debating you are cheating your study time. Linus2nd
you
