Alan FimisterSt. John Vianney Theological SeminaryDenver, CO In a recent review in this journal, the book Integralism: A Manual of Political Philosophy is criticised apparently on the assumption that it a) rejects democracy b) proposes no concrete steps by which the social and political order it describes might be attained. The first of these assumptions… Read More [essay] Make Disciples of All Nations
Catholic integralism, generally speaking, comprises a return to the past in order to move beyond the modern problem. In effect, its answer is to discard the political developments of modernity wholesale and return pick up where the Middle Ages left off. To many who do not hold this view, and who are not as familiar with the Integralist movement, such a suggestion appears strange to the point that this characterization may seem to be an uncharitable. To the contrary, however, it appears to us that the integralists themselves characterize the spirit of their philosophy in the same manner.… Read More [review] Integralism
How does truth admit of more or less? The same applies to nobility and being. One might also ask, just what does Thomas means by nobility? How is it distinct from goodness? How is the maximum in any genus supposed to cause everything else in that genus? Is this formal or efficient causality? Is this a Neo-Platonic argument from participation? Is the argument undermined by the Angelic Doctor’s outdated and erroneous example of fire as cause of all heat? Each issue is likely deserving of its own paper. Yet behind all these questions (except, perhaps, the meaning of nobility), lies a more primary difficulty: the meanings of “more or less” and the “maximum” by which they are denominated. How we answer the above questions depends on our understanding of these two key features of the argument.… Read More [essay] Participation and the Divine
Reality 