readings

i told mom i would keep her up to date on what im reading
so far:

macintyre: just randomness from the Summa Contra Gentiles
plato: the first two chapters of sayre's book on plato, which is GREAT, and im going to make stevo and mom read once im done with it; and the meno
socrates, nietzsche, and kierkegaard (SKN): the aplology and phaedo so far
mysticism: a couple of henry james lectures, and clement of alexandria's stromateis book vii
aquinas: question 1 ST; and two excerpts from two books by ratzinger, which were AMAZING
i couldnt even handle it (intro to christianity chapt 3-4, and principles of catholic theology, chapt 1)

these are some random quotes i got all obsessed with:

"the exponents of neoplatonic philosophy went a step farther, by interpreting myth ontologically, expounding it as symbolic theology and thus trying via interpretation to reconcile it with the truth. but that which can go on existing only through interpretation has in reality ceased to exist. the human mind rightly turns to the truth itself, not to what by means of devious interpretation can be shown to be reconcilable with the truth, though no longer containing any truth itself."

HA. take that "weeellllll if you look at it this way it looks like God is actually saying "some men" when He says, 'all men' ..... " people


" 'not to be encompassed by the greatest, but to let oneself be encompassed by the smallest - that is divine'. the boundless Spirit who bears in Himself the totality of Being reaches beyond the "greatest", so that to Him it is small, and He reaches into the smallest, because to Him nothing is too small ... to Him who as Spirit upholds and encompasses the universe, a spirit, a man's heart with its ability to love, is greater than all the milky ways in the universe."


"we unthinkingly assume that pure thought is greater than love, while the message of the Gospel, and the Christian picture of God contained in it, corrects philosophy and lets us know that love is higher than mere thought. absolute thought is a kind of love; it is not unfeeling idea, but creative, because it is love."


"the highest possibility of Being no longer seems to be the detachment of him who exists in himself and needs only himself. on the contrary, the highest mode of Being includes the element of relationship. it is hardly necessary to say what a revolution it must mean for the direction of man's existence when the supreme Being no longer appears as absolute, enclosed autarchy but turns out to be at the same time involvement, creative power, which creates and bears and loves all things ..."


"the highest power is demonstrated as the calm willingness completely to renounce all power; and we are shown that it is powerful, not through force, but only through the freedom of love, which, even when it is rejected, is stronger than the exultant powers of earthly violence."





and then he goes into mathematical beauty and then the most beautiful discourse on freedom and the incalculability of the world, and im not kidding by the end, i was freaking out and all THIS IS THE SWEETEST THING EVER!!!!!!!! and then i had to go read clement (by had to go, mean still have to), and it just is NOT cool comparatively (he's all gnostic and foolishness)
so
you should read it
so you can enjoy it too

(the BEST part is that tomorrow i get to hear dr o'call lecture on it ... =D )

ok

night