Philosophy

It's about resolving issues, and, reasoning.





A best book I ever read on suffering by Peter Kreeft of Boston College, stirred me to take another look at Saint Thomas Acquinas, a philosopher who combined common sense and profundity.





Kreeft's intellectual conversion was motivated by Thomas. No Protestant philospher came close, Kreeft said, except Kierkegaard, an irrationalist.





Kreeft claims that he went to Saint Mary's Church at Yale to ask about becoming a Catholic since he was convinced that the Church was the Church founded by Christ for all, and "therefore for me, and that to ignore or refuse her was to ignore or refuse him, because he is where ever his body is -- as we are."





Thamas' common sense showed in these examples:





The primary meaning of "being" is that which is," that which exists. Essences are relative to EXISTENCE, potentialities for existence. Nothing is more concrete and simple that that: TO BE OR NOT TO BE, THAT IS THE QUESTION.





Thomas settled a dispute among monks about whether or not the contemplative life was intrinsically superior to the active life by saying that the most perfect life is both contemplative and active, like Christ's.





Contemplation of truth, one's highest good, must be shared and activity must be conformed to reality, which is known by contemplation of the mind.





His cure for "sadness of soul" (called depression today) is a glass of wine, a hot bath, and a good night's sleep.





Addiction is explained by Thomas using the example of sex addiction:





"Man cannot live without joy. That is why when deprived of true spiritual joys he must go over to carnal pleasures."





Open to new insights, Kreeft notes that Thomas influence the late Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body, the Church''s answer to the great heresy of our time, the "sexual revolution."





Kreeft asserts that the Church is in the heresy-hunting business because every heresy harms humanity, and She loves humanity because She is the voice of the ONe who created and designed it.





Finally, Thomism always connects contemplation and preaching, for example, and the teaching of it, and with action and life. Kreeft recomends that pators read Thomas before preaching if they want the listener's attention.