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To: Natural Law
Re: Thought is either rational, or it's not. All else is irrelevant.

"Rationalism, and its close cousin modernism, are considered heresies by the Church.

The "ism" doesn't apply. Logic is machine independent, so it does not matter which mind does the rational processing. The processing is either rational, or irrational according to the laws of logic.

"The Catholic believes that man has the capacity to comprehend the infallible Word of God by his reason, but his reason does not determine what he will and will not believe. Faith is an act of the will.

A Catholic may believe this, but it has no bearing on reality. A person believes what they do by virtue of rational processing in the mind. Will is a rather etherial term used for the more accurate and precise term, decision. Something is believed, because the person has made a decision to do so and that decision requires a set of reasons, or justifications for the particular decision. Faith is simply a decision to believe based on the reason of trust in the person making the claim.

"For the Catholic, faith precedes reason, for the Protestant, reason precedes faith."

Catholic is rrelevant here. Man is made in God's Image. The above applies universally to any sentient rational being. A person does not need faith in a god, or anyone else, to hold and value the primary and dependent laws respectively: "to love they neighbor, as thyself", and "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor". Allegations require evidence, not faith. Faith applies to the attachment of th qualification sin attached to any violation of the above laws. Do you have any evidence for the filthy allegations made against the deceased Cardninal?

43 posted on 07/25/2012 6:41:24 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: spunkets
"The "ism" doesn't apply."

I commented on rationalism which is the product of the "rational" approach to Christianity that was proffered. The product of logic is scholasticism which reached its apex in St. Thomas Aquinas. Logic as St. Thomas demonstrated, proves Catholic doctrine.

"Reason is used in theology not to prove the truths of faith, which are accepted on the authority of God, but to defend, explain, and develop the doctrines revealed." - St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Answer 8.

Peace be with you

50 posted on 07/25/2012 8:24:36 PM PDT by Natural Law (Jesus did not leave us a Bible, He left us a Church.)
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