Which Theologian Makes Your Head Hurt?

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What is the one Christian theologian you’ve read that gives you an absolute, head-spinning migraine after reading??

Mine is St. Anselm of Canterbury. I literally had to take an advil after reading a few pages of the Proslogion.😃
 
I like your two blogs, both the writing and the design.

Are you particularly attracted to the writings of the Carmelite saints? Is that the basis of the name of your blog “Ascending Mount Carmel”?
 
Bartolome_Casas said:
I like your two blogs, both the writing and the design.

Are you particularly attracted to the writings of the Carmelite saints? Is that the basis of the name of your blog “Ascending Mount Carmel”?
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Hi, and thank you. No, actually I am not particularly into the Carmelites…Mt. Carmel just as a ring of the desert spirituality to it. Feel free to leave lots of comments on the blog, I love to read them!👍
 
Camillus718 said:
I found St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) difficult because its written from a more modern philosophical language than I’m used to hearing:

books.google.com/books?id=6ZLXAAAAMAAJ&q=edith+stein+empathy&dq=edith+stein+empathy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UacET7KOI-Pl0QHL6ZiRAg&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAA
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Saint Theresa Benedicta was a philospher of the school of phenomenology as was Pope John Paul II. It really helps to be trained in that school to be able to read it.
 
theidler said:
What is the one Christian theologian you’ve read that gives you an absolute, head-spinning migraine after reading??
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Any theologian that attempts to pit religion against science.
 
theidler said:
What is the one Christian theologian you’ve read that gives you an absolute, head-spinning migraine after reading??

Mine is St. Anselm of Canterbury. I literally had to take an advil after reading a few pages of the Proslogion.😃
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Bah! St. Anselm is like sweet nectar to me. 😛

My migraine inducing theologian is St. Thomas Aquinas. The difficulty in pulling out a convicncing argument from much of the Summa Theologica articles (like Aristotle he seems to have many hidden premises), and the basis of a lot of his reasoning on Aristotle (who is clearly inferior to Plato btw) is the primary cause of this. That doesn’t mean both St. Aquinas and his Summa are not some of the greatest things to ever have happen on good ol’ Terra.
 
Aristotle is not inferior to Plato, unless one presupposes that extreme realism is superior to moderate realism. Plato was a better author, yes, much more interesting to read; Aristotle was an equally great, and in some ways superior, philosopher.
 
Extreme realism: Plato’s theory of the Forms as absolutely independent, cf. third realm.

Moderate realism: Aristotle’s theory of instantiated Forms, as a bi-dependency of the Form on what is instantiated, and what is instantiated on the Form.
 
Khalid said:
Extreme realism: Plato’s theory of the Forms as absolutely independent, cf. third realm.
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Hmmm then perhaps I am not an ‘extreme realist’ except for believing in One Form. I would note, however, that I do not see Plato holding this position clearly and where that position is made as clear as you state it he seems to refute it at least in regards to the plurality of forms. That is my take on him anyhow.

I hold there to be two realms: Being-in-kind (participants in the form of the Good) and true Being (the form(singular) of the Good). The realm of nothingness is exactly what it is (nothing) and thus is not a realm :D.
 
That’s Aristotle’s theory of forms: there is no separate realm where universals exist, nor do universals not exist or exist only in what is instantiated, but universals exist, individualized and multiplied, within particulars.

However, God-as-Form-of-the-Good or God-as-Form is incompatible with Aristotle’s view, as in order for it to be so, that Form, and all Forms, must exist in a third realm: and if there is one Form in that realm, there shall be a multiplicity of Forms. God, in Aristotelian conception, is actus purus, viz. the actuality that actualizes the potentiality of other Forms while having no potencies itself.
 
Dranu said:
I hold there to be two realms: Being-in-kind (participants in the form of the Good) and true Being (the form(singular) of the Good). The realm of nothingness is exactly what it is (nothing) and thus is not a realm :D.
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Some (many) would argue that a realm with nothing in it is still a realm: see the theory of “modal realism”.😉
 
MindOverMatter2 said:
Aquinas can be quite difficult.
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Good choice. Genius writer and God-inspired, to be sure-----but it takes a while to get warmed up to him----particularly his writing style. Demands a lot of mental stretching.

Ultimately very worthwhile, but it takes a lot of work.

Yep. :):o
 
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