Notes / Outline on Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul), Books I (Incomplete) and II (Complete) (Draft) 9/17/13

De Anima Notes

Book I

(Chapter I)

• Aim is to grasp and understand, first, soul's essential nature, and secondly its properties
• Soul seems to require body for its proper functioning, as form is to matter.

(Chapter II)

• We need to study predecessors' views on the soul
• Predecessors focused on two unique characteristics that belong to things with a soul: movement and sensation.
• Democritus compared soul to spherical fire and soul atoms. He believe soul atoms were spherical since that would most cause movement in other things.
• Some adapted view that soul is first movement in things, that which is itself unmoved.
• Plato fashions soul out of elements in Timaeus: Animal-itself is compounded of Idea of the One with everything else of the person being constituted in similar ways.
• All characterize soul by three marks: Movement, Sensation, Incorporeality. All of these are traced back to the first principles.

(Chapter III)

• Let's begin with movement because it is impossible that soul should move itself.
• 2 possible senses in which anything may be moved:
• indirectly, owing to something other than itself (e.g. sailors on a ship)
• directly, owing to itself (e.g. ship being moved by something else)
• Is soul directly moved?
• Four species of movement:
• locomotion
• alteration
• diminution
• growth
• If movement is not incidental but belonging to soul by nature, and the four species of movement involve place, then place must be natural to the soul.
• If essence of soul be to move itself, its being moved cannot be incidental to it, as is the case with "white" and "three cubits long." These latter two characteristics do move but not apart from the thing of which they predicate. Therefore, these things move incidentally and not of themselves; hence, they do not have place.
• If the soul is to move itself essentially, and not be incidentally moved, then it must have a place. Does it?
• Further, if movement is natural to soul, there must be counter-movement that is unnatural to it, and conversely.
• The terminus ad quem (boundary at which) of a thing's natural movement is place of its natural rest, and terminus ad quem of enforced movement is enforced rest.
• How does this apply to soul?
• Further, we observe soul to originate movement in the body.

Incomplete notes on Book I

Book II

(Chapter I)

• Let's make a fresh start now. What is soul?
• We have several senses in which we recognize substance:
• in the sense of matter, which in itself is not "a this"
• in the sense of form or essence, which is that in virtue of which a thing is called "a this"
• in the sense of both form and matter
• Matter is potentiality and form is actuality. Of the latter, there are two grades related to one another (e.g. knowledge to the exercise of knowledge)
• Now there are differences among substances:
• natural bodies
• living (i.e. self-nutrition and growth / decay)
• not-living
• Every natural body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of a composite (i.e. body as the material substratum and the principle or form of its animation / life)
• But since a natural body is a body of such-and-such a kind, the body --- and only the body --- cannot be soul; the body is the subject or matter, not what is attributed to it.
• Hence the soul must be the substance in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially within it.
• But substance --- that is, in the sense of form --- is actuality, and thus soul is the actuality of a body. 
• The word "actuality" of the soul has two senses. What do we mean by actuality in this case?:
• the possession of knowledge
• the actual exercise of knowledge
• Soul must be actuality in the former sense, viz. the possession of knowledge, for both sleeping and waking presuppose existence of the soul and also correspond to possession of knowledge --- but not employed --- and exercise of knowledge respectively
• Yet, knowledge possessed must come prior to its employment, since an employment of knowledge requires knowledge to be employed.
• Therefore, soul is actuality in the first sense.
• For this reason, soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially within it.
• And by grades of actuality we mean the following:
• first grade of actuality: the vital capacity or power in the substance for movement (e.g. being able to hear and able to see)
• grades of actuality beyond the first: the vital capacity or power in act (e.g. seeing and hearing)
• The body so described is an organized body with parts. We can dismiss, therefore, the question whether the body and soul are one. 
• Unity has many senses: in this case, the relation of an actuality to that of which it is the actuality
• Answer to "what is soul?":
• substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing's essence
• "the essential whatness" of a body of the character just assigned, viz. organized or possessed potentially of life
• Even other natural / artificial bodies have souls (e.g. axes, trees, books, etc.) for the above reasons.
• By "potentially capable of living," we mean that which still retains it the principle of life and not that which has lost the soul it had.
• Even seeds and fruits are bodies which possess the above qualification though only potentially (i.e. they are at a further remove from actuality than the fully formed and organized body)
• Analogy for describing soul's actuality in the body:
• soul is actuality in the sense corresponding to the power of sight and the power in the tool, which are first grades of actuality
• Soul, therefore, inseparable from the body --- or at least some parts of it are (if it has parts)
• reason: actuality of parts of soul are nothing but actualities of bodily parts or organs
• Yet, some parts of the soul may be separable since they are not actualities of any bodily parts / organs whatsoever...
• Conclusion of sketch or outline determination of the nature of soul

(Chapter II)

• Since what is more evident or perhaps more observable by us is "what in itself is confused" (413a12-14), we must begin this way, and we must give a clear definition in the form analogous to the conclusion of a syllogism
• my notes: what is a syllogism?:
• minimally, two premises which lead to one conclusion e.g.
• All men are animals (P₁)
• Socrates is a man (P₂)
• ∴ Socrates is an animal (C)
• "...what has soul in it differs from what has not in that the former displays life" (413a21-22)
• Now "living" has more than one meaning:
• thinking, perception, or local movement and rest;
• movement in the sense of nutrition, decay and growth
• Power of self-nutrition can isolated from the other higher "living powers" (i.e. thinking, perceiving, etc.), but these powers cannot be isolated from self-nutrition
• The self-nutritive potencies in a thing allow us to call something living at all (e.g. plants, trees, etc.), and even the higher animals have these potencies (e.g. monkeys, human beings, etc.)
• Yet, the possession of sensation leads us to classify living things as animals and not merely plants
• What do we mean primarily by sensation?:
• touch: power of self-nutrition can be isolated from touch and sensation generally, so too can touch be isolated from all other forms of sense (and here Aristotle means analytically speaking --- in terms of their taxonomical structure)
• Definition of the above will be discussed later in Book III. For now, it suffices to say that soul is the source of these phenomena and is characterized by them:
• viz. powers of self-nutrition, sensation, thinking, and motivity
• Is each of the aforementioned a soul or a part of a soul?:
• If part of a soul in what sense?:
• parts of a soul in definition only?
• or, parts of a soul in definition as well as in "local situation" (413b15)?
• In the case of plants, when divided are observed to continue to live though "removed to a distance from one another" (413b17-19).
• What does Aristotle mean by "divided"? Possibilities:
• division with respect to magnitude and quantity (e.g. cutting strawberries)
• division with respect to determinate matter under qualified species (e.g. Alex and Casey under the species "rational animal," many with respect to one)
• division with respect to various potencies of the soul as mentioned (413b13-15)
• The soul of each individual plant prior to division was actually one and potentially many (i.e. "in insects which have been cut in two; each of the segments possesses both sensation and local movement; and if sensation, necessarily also imagination and appetition; for, where there is sensation, there is also pleasure and pain and, where these, necessarily also desire" (413b20-23))
• clarification: one species to many particulars? unity of potencies in single actuality? Surely, cutting insects into segments does not allow for each one of them to retain the same unity of potencies (i.e. cutting a cockroach along its thorax kills the insect and thereby incidentally corrupts the soul). Could it be the case that, in insects, neither sensation nor local movement can be found without the other? Needs clarification
• No evidence yet about division of potencies with respect to mind or the power to think, which seems to be a very different kind of soul. In what way?:
• from what is eternal to what is perishable
• capable of existing in isolation from all other psychic powers --- needs clarification
• All the other parts of the soul (vegetative and sensitive potencies of the soul) incapable of separate existence though distinguishable by definition (413b27-30).
• "If opining is distinct from perceiving, to be capable of opining and to be capable of perceiving must be distinct..." (413b29-30):
• clarification: recall that Aristotle enumerated different potencies of the human soul (i.e. capacity for seeing, capacity for thinking, etc.) and different actualizations which correspond to these potencies (i.e. seeing, thinking, etc.). Yet, seeing can only be the actualization of the subject's capacity for seeing and not his or her capacity for hearing since every act is restricted by potency, so that only a certain kind of substratum can receive the form proper to its distinct actualization. Therefore, every act responds to its proper potency and must be considered distinct from one another as mentioned in the above quote.
• Therefore, we can distinguish between different animals based upon their unique powers
• Two phrases with two meanings:
• "that whereby we know"
• with respect to knowledge --- knowing by
• with respect to soul as the first principle --- knowing with
• similarly, "that whereby we are healthy"
• with respect to health as the form
• with respect to the body and its parts as the matter
• "knowledge" and "health" can be seen as the formal constituents which actualize their respective capacities:
• capacity to know
• capacity to be healthy
• Soul therefore must be defined as such:
• ratio or formulable essence (414a13) and not a matter or subject
• As was said, substance has three meanings:
• form
• matter
• complex of both
• Of these three:
• matter is potentiality
• form is actuality
• The mistake of former thinkers was to fit the soul into the body while neglecting to elaborate upon the body's definite specification of kind or character  (414a22-24)
• Conclusion: soul is an actuality or formulable essence of something that possesses a potentiality of being besouled

(Chapter III)

• Of the following psychic powers, some kinds of living things possess all, some less than all, others one only:
• "the nutritive, the appetitive, the sensory, the locomotive, and the power of thinking" (414a30-31)
• "If any order of living things has the sensory, it must also have the appetitive; for appetite is the genus of which desire, passion, and wish are species" (414b1-3)
• We will classify the former distinctions in Book III. For now, it is safe to say that all animals that possess sense of touch also have appetition. Why?
• whatever has the sense for touch, has the capacity for pleasure and pain which require objects of pleasure and objects of pain present to it; the desire for objects of pleasure is called appetite
• clarification: Aristotle does not have in mind plants, which cannot in this sense "touch." Touching is a qualitatively different activity than receiving stimuli, which is what plants do. Only those living organisms which have nutritive potencies in addition to sensitive potencies (e.g. capacity to touch) can be said to have desires for objects of pleasure, or the appetite.
• We will examine imagination later in Book III
• A too general definition of soul, moreover, would be absurd. There would be no distinctions of anything if that should be the case.
• Each successive and common term indicating species contains its preceding genus in potency to that determination (414b28-32)
• e.g. the sensory power the self-nutritive
• Hence, we must in the case of each order of living things ask, what is its soul (that of a man, an animal, and a plant)
• We will discuss the orderly succession of the above terms (man, animal, and plant respectively) more in Book III
• In any case, the power of perception is never found apart from the power of self-nutrition even though the latter can be found apart from the former, viz. plants.
• Even so, a small minority of animals possess calculation and thought. Those living organisms which possess these rational potencies contain all that the lower animals and plants have (i.e. sensitive and nutritive faculties)
• Conclusion: "It is evident that the way to give the most adequate definition of soul is to seek in the case of each of its forms for the most appropriate definition" (415a13-15)

(Chapter IV)

• Necessary for student of these forms of soul (e.g. that of a plant, lower animal, and a human) to accomplish the following:
• to find a definition of each which expresses what it is
• in order to understand thinking, perceptive, and nutritive potencies; we must give an account of the enablers of thinking and perceiving: "If this is correct, we must on the same ground go yet another step farther back and have some clear view of the objects of each; thus we must start with these objects [italic mine], e.g. with food, with what is perceptible, or with what is intelligible" (415a20-23).
• My notes: contrast with the modern turn to the subject, which reversed the order of inquiry (e.g. Descartes, John Locke, etc.)
• to investigate its derivative properties
• Let's first begin with investigating nutrition and reproduction. Why?:
• nutritive soul is found among all others
• most primitive and widely distributed power of soul in virtue of which something is said to have life
• Acts which nutrition and reproduction manifest themselves:
• the use of food
• reproduction under certain conditions
• a living thing which has reached its normal development
• unmutilated
• mode of generation must not be spontaneous but teleological (i.e. end-driven by nature)
• "That is the goal towards which all things strive, that for the sake of which they do whatsoever their nature renders possible" (415b2-3).
• What does "for the sake of which" mean? Either,
• "the end to achieve which" (415b5)
• "the being in whose interest, the act is done" (415b5-6)
• No living thing is able to act according to its nature / telos continuously because of the perpetual possibility of the thing to perish
• Continues acting according to its specific not numerical nature
• my notes: this similar to Plato's participation in the Forms but not quite. What Aristotle means by this passage is that, in a series of discontinuous beings, there is similarity of behavior that occurs not because of the discrete being qua discrete being but discrete being qua specific mode of being (e.g. this blue eye and that brown eye may be different and discontinuous objects, but they retain their unity through their specific mode of being, namely "to see."
• In the case of living things, their being is to live, and their kind of soul is the underlying principle or cause of that mode of being. Also, the actuality of a potential is exactly identical with its formulable essence (415b13-17)
• Soul is also final cause of its body. Why?:
• "Nature, like mind, always does whatever its does for the sake of something, which something is its end. To that something corresponds in the case of animals the soul and in this it follows the order of nature; all natural bodies are organs of the soul" (415b15-17). This is true for plants as well as for animals --- that their bodies tend towards the preservation of the soul's interior grades of actualities (i.e. its capacity to see, think, etc.) (415b17-20).
• Recall the two senses of "that for the sake of which":
• the end to achieve which, and
• the being in whose interest, anything is or is done
• my notes: the latter sense of finality applies to the soul in relation to the body.
• Soul is also the cause of the living body as the original source of local movement, and by that Aristotle means:
• change of quality
• Take for instance sensation which Aristotle thinks is a qualitative alteration (e.g. feeling hot to feeling cold, changing from state of pleasure to state of pain, etc.). Nothing that does not have soul is capable of sensation for the reasons given in the other chapters of this book. The sensitive appetite grounds the soul's capacity for this change to occur and is therefore the underlying source of movement (415b23-25).
• change of quantity
• A prime example would be that of growth and decay, which the soul makes possible as original source of movement toward self-preservation (415b25-28).
• Aristotle transgresses to Empedocles' attempt to explain local movement of plants while also urging us to consider the function of the organs of living organisms including plants. The pre-Socratic thinkers, in other words, held that fire may have been the cause of a living organism's nutritive capacities since fire apparently has its own source of movement viz. it tends to move upwards away from the earth. Aristotle partially concedes with Empedocles that fire may be a concurrent cause but not a principle cause which is the soul --- the form of the body. Therefore, the delimiting and formulable essence of a thing is determined by the soul not matter (415b29 - 416a19).
• Nutrition and reproduction are due to one and the same psychic power viz. the nutritive power.

Incomplete notes on Book II

Book III

(Chapter IV)

• Let us turn now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks in order to determine whether or not this is separable from the other powers of the soul (429a10-12):
• in definition only
• or spatially as well
• We need to ask (429a12-13):
• what differentiates this part
• how thinking can take place
• "If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process... (429a15)
• in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or
• a process different from but analogous to that
• Thinking part of soul must therefore be capable of receiving the form of the object, not the object itself but the form of the object
• "Mind must be related to what is thinkable;" that is, mind must be potentially identical in character with the form of the object; "as sense is to what is sensible" (429a15)
• Since everything is a possible object of thought --- needs clarification (i.e. how does Aristotle know that everything is potentially intelligible in the way in which everything is not potentially sensible --- the sensitive powers are passive with regard to actual sensibles, no?) --- mind must be free from all admixture in order to know. Why?:
• "...co-presence of what is alien to its nature is a hindrance and a block..." (429a20). My notes: possible meanings of this, what could possibly be alien to its nature?:
• if the nature of the rational powers is chiefly determined by the intelligible object; by which things are known according to their formulable essences which can, in turn, be predicated to a potentially infinite number of discrete beings under consideration; then any intelligible objects --- or perhaps any non-intelligible objects such as sensible objects --- which do not perform this function (assuming that there are any) present obstacles to the rational powers
• Yet, it seems odd to say this, since intelligible objects require discrete objects under consideration in order for them to be known. This needs more clarification.
• It follows from this that the intellectual part, like the sensitive part, "can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain capacity" (429a20):
• My notes: in other words, the rational powers must be deprived of an intelligible in order for the transition from lowers grades of actualities to higher grades of actuality to occur viz. from being able to think to actually thinking.
• "Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body; if so, it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is, it has none. It was a good idea to call the soul 'the place of forms', though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2) even this is the forms only potentially, not actually" (429a25).

Incomplete notes

On the Just War and U.S. Involvement in the Syrian Civil War 9/11/13 & 03/12/14

Yesterday, President Barack Obama delivered a speech urging Americans to consider a targeted military strike on Bashar al-Assad's regime. The president claimed that there was substantial evidence implicating Assad and his regime in a lethal chemical strike on opposition forces in Syrian neighborhoods. They continued firing gas rockets at these neighborhoods on the days following the attack (2:50 - 3:30). According to Obama, Assad's recent attacks have not only violated international crime laws against humanity but also continue to threaten our national security interests (1:35, 4:15). Members of the Obama administration have attempted diplomatic negotiations with Syrian allies. The president has also made clear that he would find peaceful solutions before initiating force on the Assad regime.

Obama has laid out plans for Congress to decide for or against a targeted military strike on Assad's regime; which seek to "deter Assad from using chemical weapons, to degrade his regime's ability to use them, and to make clear to the world that we will not tolerate their use" (5:30 - 5:43). Yet, Assad's regime may be incapable to present a serious threat to the U.S. military or to initiate any other kind of retaliation that would be any different from the threats that the U.S. receives on a daily basis (8:45 - 9:06). Moreover, Reuters recently published an article in which the Foreign Minister of Syria Walid al-Moualem, in cooperation with his Russian allies, said, "'We want to join the convention on the prohibition of chemical weapons. We are ready to observe our obligations in accordance with that convention, including providing all information about these weapons'" ("Syria vows to give up chemical weapons, no deal yet at the U.N."). The author also quoted Russian President Vladimir Putin so as to say that his weapons plan with Syria would only work if the Obama administration and U.S. allies were willing to "rule out military action."

Could the Obama administration's refusal to step down from its weighty military actions cause another World War? Should the Obama administration decide for or against military intervention in the Middle East? This article will outline, from a natural law perspective, an ethical framework for deciding for or against wartime resolutions under strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force, or the "just war" doctrine as it is called. In order for the Obama administration to correctly exercise the right of lawful self-defense, the following four conditions need to be met simultaneously:

• the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
• all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
• there must be serious prospects of success;
• the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ¶ 2309)

If the Obama administration's supposed intentions and actions for defending the country from Assad's regime fall in line with all four conditions outlined by the "just war" doctrine, and if there is sufficient evidence for the claims about the threats Assad's regime presents to the United States' national security interests, then the Obama administration would indeed be accomplishing its purpose in defending the country in lawful self-defense. If not, the Obama administration will seriously undermine the country's moral credibility on an international scale, as well as engender further hatred against the U.S. by the Middle East and jeopardize the fundamental rights and safety of our country. Only upon serious contemplation and reflection on the matter can we decide in favor of a bright future for our country.

An Excerpt from Thomas Nagel's The Last Word

In his book, The Last Word, Thomas Nagel, an American philosopher and University Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, takes a dim view of postmodernism's controversies which include tendencies toward subjectivism, relativism, and irrationalism. He also argues that postmodernism has influenced our culture away from rational discourse and sustained thinking:

Thomas Nagel

The worst of it is that subjectivism is not just an inconsequential intellectual flourish or badge of theoretical chic. It is used to deflect argument, or to belittle the pretensions of the arguments of others. Claims that something is without relativistic qualification true or false, right or wrong, good or bad, risk being derided as expressions of a parochial perspective or form of life --- not as a preliminary to showing that they are mistaken whereas something else is right, but as a way of showing that nothing is right and that instead we are all expressing our personal or cultural points of view. The actual result has been a growth in the already extreme intellectual laziness of contemporary culture and the collapse of serious argument throughout the lower reaches of the humanities and social sciences, together with a refusal to take seriously, as anything other than first-person avowals, the objective arguments of others. (5, 6)

On the Outgrowth of Modernity and the Musings of Her Children 8/31/13 [Revised 05/07/14]

As it is well known by now, Miley Cyrus' new single "We Can't Stop" had drawn the media's attention as millions of people rushed to criticize Cyrus for her raunchy, offense song and dance routines. Perhaps out of sheer desperation, Cyrus attempted to make a final stand against the dread of her waning youth by throwing obscene vulgarities upon an unsuspecting and scornful crowd. Their jaws dropped and so did mine. They became deaf; my Christian ears bled.

Friedrich Nietzsche

With that said, however, too many of us paid little to no scrutiny to the contents of her lyrics which portray even more perverse transgressions. By tracing our steps back to roots of this ideological pedigree, we will have a clearer understanding of what is at stake. If we assume that our ethical notions follow upon our convictions about nature, then a careful treatment on nature will uncover the principles of the ethical attitudes that we have. If we also assume that most people take for granted what their superiors tell them, and if those superiors take for granted what their superiors tell them, then only those who have thought for themselves about nature and ethics will truly be the ones influencing the rest. In other words, past thinkers have unknowingly influenced our culture towards greater emphases on subjectivism and value relativism. From the ivory watchtowers to the average households, ideas take root slowly but surely. They nestle in the minds of many and influence their course of action as they trickle down from the highest scholar to the unsuspecting person. Sooner or later, they become us.

From the sixteenth century onwards, as more thinkers became increasingly skeptical of tradition and of our claims to certain knowledge, many philosophers and scientists worked towards Enlightenment idealism, the quest for man's domination over nature. In Rene Descartes' Principles and Meditations, after having rendered the quest for epistemological certainty in nature null and void, Descartes retreats into his own interiority, finding solace in his famous Latin phrase, Cogito Ergo Sum, "I think therefore I am." His ideas were a radical departure from pre-modern thought, which held in high esteem man's co-partnership with nature, the study of being (esse). Soon enough, modern thinkers such as John Locke and David Hume reduced our ideas to impoverished sense impressions, ebbing and flowing with the passage of time (Essay Concerning Human Understanding II, I, 2 and 5, vol. 1; A Treatise of Human Nature, I, 1, 1 p. 7). How was one to make sense of unchanging moral principles, the ideas of which had continually fallen privy to change and corruption? Did we need Immanuel Kant to save the day, or should we have reassessed the situation entirely?

Miley Cyrus

After all, if the world cannot provide for moral laws and absolutes, and if our interiority does not suffice for that matter, where do we go from here? Friedrich Nietzsche, a nineteenth century German philosopher, stared head-on at the resultant pessimism that overshadowed the modern struggle, which he saw as being expressed in Greek tragedies. Having expanded upon the Greek tragedies' resonance with Arthur Schopenhauer's Kantian phenomenalism --- and later rejecting it --- Nietzsche initially overcame existential pessimism by finding consolation in tragedies that draw us in toward the Real: the eternal reality of the will. He thought that we could find joy and have our "greatest dignity in our meaning as works of art --- for only as an aesthetic phenomenon are existence and the world justified to certainty" (The Birth of Tragedy, 5, 38). Nietzsche later reneged on his previous claims by suspecting that any undertakings by traditional philosophers toward uncovering realism only revealed a projection of their own moral impositions (Beyond Good and Evil, 6, 8-9). Nietzsche's suspicions about meta-realist claims later churned out an emerging nihilism, a conception of a world with values not inherent to its order but rather as revelries of our make-shift paradigms: "[T]here are no moral facts at all. Moral judgment has this in common with religious judgment, that it believes in realities which do not exist. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena, more precisely a misinterpretation. . . . In this respect moral judgment should never be taken literally" (The Twilight of the Idols, 33). We can read more about Nietzsche's doctrine of self-determination and "will to power" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which he develops the ideal Übermensch as someone who has thrown off the shackles of oppressive morality, or we can listen to Cyrus' new song, "We Can't Stop."

Now it seems we have come full circle as our culture now dreamily intimates notions of supreme superiority over all forms of moral objectivism. Cyrus' "We Can't Stop" represents the logical absurdities of a culture already saturated in Übermensch-think, and she's not alone. She represents the victor of a rival ideology to which we have allowed ourselves to be succumbed, yet many of us today have difficulty realizing this to be the case. In other words, Cyrus' teddy-bear dance routines and aggressive lyrics are, together in their unity, a bleak omen prefiguring notions of unrestrained freedom for our future generations to embrace. Hopefully, some good will come out of this; we can assure ourselves of that fact, at least. But for now, be prepared for more Miley.

An Excerpt from Jacques Maritain's The Degrees of Knowledge: The Majesty and Poverty of Metaphysics 8/19/13

After having to his satisfaction scolded the nominalists of his day --- and also ours --- for blaming "knowledge-through-concepts for not being a supra-sensible intuition of the existing singular;" (1) Jacques Maritain, a twentieth century French philosopher, paints a fascinating portrait of intuitive archetypes who contemplate God's majestic light apace:

Jacques Maritain

There is a sort of grace in the natural order presiding over the birth of a metaphysician just as there is over the birth of a poet. The latter thrusts his heart into things like a dart or rocket and, by divination, sees, within the very sensible itself and inseparable from it, the flash of a spiritual light in which a glimpse of God is revealed to him. The former turns away from the sensible, and through knowledge sees within the intelligible, detached from perishable things, this very spiritual light itself, captured in some conception. The metaphysician breathes an atmosphere of abstraction which is death for the artist. Imagination, the discontinuous, the unverifiable, in which the metaphysician perishes, is life itself to the artist. While both absorb rays that come down from creative Night, the artist finds nourishment in a bound intelligibility which is as multiform as God's reflections upon earth, the metaphysician finds it in a naked intelligibility that is as determined as the proper being of things. They are playing seesaw, each in turn rising up to the sky. Spectators make fun of their game; they sit upon solid ground. (2)

Review of "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver 8/03/13

"Cathedral"

*SPOILERS* Raymond Carver's simple yet profoundly rich story of deep communion and compassion draws the reader in with its carefully crafted characters and ordinary but powerful symbols. Carver's "Cathedral" tells a story of a blind man (Robert) who saves the unnamed narrator ("the husband") from his spiritual indifference and loneliness. The story begins when Robert enters the couple's home as a messiah figure, eager to save the husband from the routines of everyday life. The wife also presents herself as the antagonist who nitpicks her husband's naiveté to the point of disparaging him of his capacity for personal depth. Near the end of the story, while the wife is sleeping, Robert draws the husband in towards greater spiritual awareness by "listening" to him and by asking the husband to draw a cathedral in order so that the husband might see the cathedral with his own ethereality. The story begins to approach its climax as Carver now imagines the husband surmounting his incapacity to express his deep but hidden desire for interpersonal communion, which he projects onto his crude drawing of the French cathedral. Just as the wife awakens to interrupt her husband from his transcendence, the blind man stops her and urges the husband to close his eyes. The story finally ends as Robert fully elevates the husband to a kind of homemade serenity: "'It's really something,' [the husband] said."

Illustration by Sonja Murphy

Jesus Christ: the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Lamb of God 7/12/13

The Holy Spirit sanctified me in His wisdom by showing me parallels between Jacob's mysterious blessing to Judah from whom Jesus Christ would ultimately descend (c.f. Matthew 1) and the Lamb of God (a.k.a. the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, or the Root of David) who opened the scrolls and broke the seven seals. Notice the following parallels beginning first with the Book of Genesis:

Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father's sons shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. Binding his foal to the vine, he washes his garments in wine and his vesture in the blood of grapes; his eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. (Genesis 49:8-12)

Now read the following passage from the Book of Revelation:

And I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I wept much that no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." (Revelation 5:1-5)

Thank you, Lord, for opening your heart to your disciples by inspiring men to write your sacred letter. Amen.

Book of Revelation

Additional Notes on the Tetragrammaton, the Divine Name 7/06/13

Hello, Everyone! I wrote an additional piece to my "Coming to the Faith" article just a couple of hours ago and would like to share it with you. If any of you are philosophy or linguistics majors, I would definitely appreciate a response. The following paragraphs seek to name God given our aforesaid knowledge of His infinite and necessary existence by taking a logical and linguistic approach to defining God. Thank you very much and enjoy.

The Catholic Church's teaching on the Divine Name, as quoted from Exodus 3:14:

The revelation of the ineffable name "I AM WHO AM" contains then the truth that God alone IS. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it in the Church's tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is. (Paragraph 213, Catechism of the Catholic Church)

We will, following from the Church's authoritative teachings on the matter, attempt to construct a philosophical and a linguistic account of God's ineffable name by employing arguments for expressing the indeterminate being and pure actuality that God is. Let us begin with the following propositions: "Kate is six feet tall," "my sofa is brown," "my teacher is a woman," and "Alex is." All of these propositions include the copula "is" that binds together the subject and the predicate, and these propositions also express different modes or acts of existence. The first two propositions express the subject's attributed modes of existence whereas the last proposition expresses the subject's substantial existence, so that even in the last proposition there is an implied predication with regard to the subject's contingent existence. Yet these modes of expression all express restricted acts of existence that fail to accurately resemble the existence that God is. We also know from the [previous article] that God does not have existence as one of His attributes as do the subjects in the aforementioned propositions. God simply is His own existence, and if we are going to attempt to assign a name to God, we only have substantial existence and accidental existence as the only two options for extrapolating a controlled definition for God.

Tetragrammaton

The copula, moreover, appears to bind the subject and the predicate together to express varying acts of existence even though the copula is, in and of itself, without an initial subject-predicate determination, which the infinitive form of the verb expresses as unbounded by a particular subject or tense, "to be." The infinitive expresses indeterminately whatever modes of existence the subject and the predicate restrict upon it. Otherwise the infinitive would never need to be restricted to express this act of existence as opposed to that act of existence if it already expressed its own unique determination. Moreover, the subject-predicate combination restricts the infinitive to express a finite mode of being. The three elements in a proposition therefore express a restricted mode of existence.

In [a separate article] we have demonstrated for the contingent existence of the cosmos. Contingent beings, however, take the place of the subject and the predicate in our everyday language. Therefore, linguistically speaking, existence is not necessarily to be expressed initially from the subject and the predicate, but rather the subject and the predicate find their particular existence expressed in and through the infinitive in its initial and indeterminate existence, "to be."

Some subject-predicate combinations, however, only express existence conditionally like the following categorical proposition: "all unicorns are one-horned." The categorical proposition, unlike the three propositions with which we started, can only conditionally express the existence of a contingent being in determinate matter. The proposition "all unicorns are one-horned" does indeed express an affirmative proposition as to a unicorn's proper qualities, so the statement does grant unicorns a particular mode of being but only in a qualified way since unicorns do not exist. The copula therefore does not always grant expressions of complete existence to everything that could possibly exist (e.g. unicorns, sofas, beds, and vampires) even though expressions of a contingent being's existence would not be possible without it.

Therefore with regard to God, who is His own unrestricted and infinite existence, there must belong an extraordinary predication distinct from the forms of predication used for contingent beings. To God there must belong a predication expressing Him as the binding element in a subject-predicate determination. The propositions "God is the One who is 'to be,'" "God is He that is," and "God is" would best communicate His unique class of unrestricted and infinite existence as He exists through His proper essence. This, however, is not like the last of the three aforementioned propositions, "Alex is," since in this proposition it is already implied that the subject's existence is attributed to himself only contingently. The expression "God is," on the other hand, seeks to attach the predicate to God not as to one of His attributes but as to His proper essence. Finally, St. Thomas Aquinas, in the eleventh article of the thirteenth question of the first part of the first part of the Summa Theologica, quotes from St. John of Damascus' Exposition of the Orthodox Faith so as to write that God's name denominates an "infinite ocean of substance."

From my previous article: Aquinas finally concludes by saying the cause of being, bequeathing existence to all existent things as the sheer act of 'to be' itself, in all of its amplitude, existing and subsisting, imperfectly expresses who God is. This is what we all come to know as God.

God and the Four Causes: Are Things Preserved in Their Being by God? (Part I) 6/09/13

Four Causes

In the first article of the fifth question of St. Thomas Aquinas' De Potentia (On The Power of God), Aquinas asks the following question: "Are Things Preserved in Their Being by God?" He points out the key aspects of the issue: "The question at issue is about the preservation of things in their being by God: and the first point of inquiry is whether they continue to exist independently of all divine action: and seemingly they do." Aquinas wants to argue for God's creative acts of existence, claiming that the world would fall into nothingness if God were to withhold his preservative power: "On the contrary it is written (Heb. i, 8): Upholding all things by, the word of his power: and the gloss remarks 'Even as all things were created by him, so by him are they preserved unchangeable.'"

In order to fully understand and appreciate Aquinas' approach to this question, we need to learn more about his Aristotelian terminology (i.e. Aristotle's Four Causes: the material cause, the efficient cause, the formal cause, and the final cause). Aristotle believes that we need a sufficient grasp of a thing's underlying causes or principles in order for us to claim to have knowledge about a particular thing or a phenomenon in the world (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). These four causes, according to Aristotle, exhaust the possible answers to the "why-question" of a thing. The following x paragraphs will attempt to properly define the Four Causes and provide numerous examples to supplement our understanding of them.

Firstly, the material cause is the "that out of which" or "that from which" of a thing. The material cause points to the material components or parts of a thing. Take for instance Aristotle's example of the statue. What would be the material cause of the statue? Depending on what the statue is made of, one might say copper, marble, or iron. The material make-up of the statue would take the place of the material cause of the question, "Why is this a statue?", because bronze would answer to the substratum that the form actualizes. Moreover, the flesh and bones of a human being would also be material causes explaining why this thing is a human being and not anything other than a human being.

Secondly, the efficient cause answers to the "primary source of the change or rest" or "that by which" of a thing. It points to the cause of its becoming what it is, the cause being that by which the thing came to be (in philosophical jargon: the bodily agent whereby the form or the characterization of the bronze as statue becomes induced in the now properly disposed matter, the bronze then unshaped now shaped so as to contain the form of the statue). Take for instance Aristotle's example of the statue again. The sculptor would be the efficient cause of the statue because the sculptor transmutes the matter of the statue, the bronze, in such a way that would allow the form to actualize the bronze into a statue.

To be continued...

The Ark of the Covenant and the Virgin Mary, Holy Queen and Holy Mother 5/23/13 7/16/14

Jeremiah Hiding the Ark of the Covenant

In his book, Hail, Holy Queen, Dr. Scott Hahn referenced Sacred Scripture in order to establish Mary as the "New Eve," the long-lost ark of the covenant, and someone to be exalted on high. He used the following holy books to argue for her majesty and employed many others: Genesis, 2nd Samuel, Jeremiah, Daniel, Luke, John, and Revelation.

In his book, Hahn noted Jeremiah's solitary role in "conceal[ing] the ark in order to prevent it from defilement when Babylonian invaders came to destroy the temple [of Jerusalem]" (Hahn 51). Scholars have dated this event at around 587 B.C.; the ark had been missing ever since the invasion (Hahn 51). Hahn also quoted Sacred Scripture, the deutero-canonical/apocryphal text, and referred to the ark's concealment*:

And Jeremiah came and found a cave, and he brought there the tent and the ark and the altar of incense, and he sealed up the entrance. Some of those who followed him came up to mark the way, but could not find it. When Jeremiah learned of it, he rebuked them and declared: “The place shall be unknown until God gathers his people together again and shows his mercy. And then the Lord will disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord and the cloud will appear, as they were shown in the case of Moses, and as Solomon asked that the place should be specially consecrated.” (2 Maccabees 2:5-8)

Although the ark had indeed been lost during the Babylonian Exile, St. Luke wrote that the ark was finally found in the Virgin Mary. Luke used some passages from 2nd Samuel in order compare its striking parallels with the Virgin's life: Mary traveled to the house of Zechariah in the hill country of Judea, as King David had done with the ark of covenant (Luke 1:39, 2 Samuel 6:2-3). Both figures traveled over the Judaean highlands in order to reach their destination. Both stories began with the two having "[arisen] and went" (Luke 1:39, 2 Samuel 6:2), which associated the two figures with each other -- or three rather. Moreover, Elizabeth's question to Mary paralleled King David's question to the Lord after He struck Uzzah on the spot (Luke 1:43, 2 Samuel 6:9). The unborn John the Baptist's leap to Mary's greeting also resembled King David's dance before the ark of the covenant, following his triumphant entrance into Jerusalem (Luke 1:41, 1:44; 2 Samuel 6:5, 6:14-17). Interestingly, Zechariah, Elizabeth's spouse, had been attending to his priestly duties at the temple of Jerusalem during this time, about twenty-five miles north of Hebron, his hometown. The angel Gabriel had told him that his son would be Christ's forerunner before he dumbstruck Zechariah for his momentary doubt (Luke 1:18-22). In other words, there appeared to be some connection between Zechariah's priestly duties at Jerusalem and King David's entrance into the same city. Either way, both sets of figures had been present in the hill country of Judea when these events happened. Finally, Hahn closed his account of the two stories by reinforcing their connection: "…the ark remained in the hill country for three months (2 Samuel 6:11), the same amount of time Mary spent with Elizabeth ([Luke] 1:56)" (Hahn 64).

King David and the Ark of the Covenant

All these related gestures from the Old Testament to the New established Mary as the 'ark of the covenant', since both had borne the Word of God, but in different ways. The ark bore the Word of God in stone tablets, manna "the Bread of Life," and the iron rod of Aaron; the Virgin Mary carried the Lord, the Word of God en-fleshed.

St. John also demonstrated this same parallel in his book entitled Revelation, which he wrote after the Virgin's death. After the seventh angel had blown his trumpet, the ark of the covenant appeared in all of its splendor and glory: "Then God's temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, loud noises, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail" (Revelation 11:19). As mentioned earlier, Jews around the time of the Babylonian Exile lost the ark of the covenant, which was then God's presence in the temple of Jerusalem. Great sadness ensued when this prized possession was lost. Yet, John wrote this in order to capture the attention of his audience for Revelation 12:

A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in the sky; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads . . . And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth; she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron . . . . (Revelation 12:1-5)

The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun (1805-1810) by William Blake

Daniel 7 held the key for unlocking the dragon's unknown name. In Daniel; dragons, creatures, and beasts represented dynasties. The beast in Revelation was King Herod's dynasty because the rise of the Davidic and messianic king threatened his claim to power. Herod killed most of the infants of Bethlehem in order to circumvent any threats to his illegitimate reign (Matthew 2). Moreover, "seven Herod's" ruled in line from Antipeter, and the "ten Caesar's" from Rome's imperial line corresponded to the dragon's seven heads and ten horns in Revelation (Hahn 58). In other words, John wrote a historical narrative and employed dramatic metaphors and characters in order to link Rome's fall with Christ's victorious reign. John described the Virgin and Christ Jesus as the dragon's wartime enemies: "Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus" (Revelation 12:17). All who had new life in Christ became offspring of Mary, and all who had considered themselves to be followers in Christ also needed to believe that they were the children of Mary, as brethren in Christ and Mary as their mother.

Finally, Jesus referred to the Virgin as "woman" (John 2:4, 20:13, 20:15, 19:26), which hearkened back to Eve's name in the Genesis, "'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man'" (Genesis 2:23). Even while the Romans crucified Him, Jesus repeated the New Eve's name and prophetic fulfillment from Genesis: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman, behold, your son!' Then he said to the disciple, 'Behold, your mother!' And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home (John 19:26-27). Mary fulfilled Eve's title as "mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20) and fought the dragon in Revelation, the "ancient serpent" and "deceiver of the whole world" (Revelation 12:9, Genesis 3:13).

Although the Virgin was not divine like her Son, she is our exemplary intercessor par excellence and our Heavenly Mother of the Most High. Amen.

Virgin Mary and Jesus

*The block quote was taken from another Bible translation: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition.

William Buckley and Mortimer Adler on the Human Intellect 5/08/13

Something I would like to add here. Take someone who understands, not sees or imagines but understands, a common object rather than a particular object (e.g. apple rather than this red apple). The person incidentally changes form from not-understanding apple to understanding apple, which is a change that is substantially different from say this apple changing from not-red to red. The apple changing from not-red to red appears to us a new and different change occurring in matter, but the person changing from not-understanding apple to understanding apple, and also in a certain way the apple changing form from not being understood to being understood, does not appear to us in sensible fashion, which thereby suggests the immaterial nature of the human person's intellective capacity, the human intellect (nous).

Adler's comment on the low degree of spirituality in human beings fascinates: "Man has both his feet in the world of matter and is leaning over the fence --- as it were --- with his intellect into the world of spirit." Adler stays close to the Thomistic tradition in comparing the angels, the highest intellectual substances separated from matter, to human beings, the lowest intellectual substances in matter.

From the Finite to the Infinite: A Pagan's Journey to the Promised Land (Revised) 5/07/13 03/12/14

School of Athens

All of us desire to know where we are going with our lives. What does it all mean? What can we hope for? The humanities or the liberal arts might answer these questions, but there are many issues to consider. What is an eager truth-seeker to do? Indeed, analyzing the truth will be much easier to pursue if we consider their principles.

In previous articles, we explored modern philosophy from this bird's eye view. Let us now explore Ancient Greek philosophy and Medieval Scholasticism and ask the same questions they would have asked if they were here. Is there a God? What can we hope for? These obscure philosophers asked the most profound questions, and we still struggle to answer them. Let us now attempt to prove for His existence in the same way in which they had done so.

If we are going to prove for God's self-existence and independent existence from the cosmos, we need to begin with an elaboration of the various objects of the cosmos. Only then can we demonstrate for a being in reality that corresponds to the notion of a self-existing and independently existing God.

Cosmos

Thirteenth century Dominican friar, St. Thomas Aquinas, began with what he thought was obvious: diversum est esse et id quod est—that what a thing is and its existence are not the same. There are many things that exist, but distinguishing between various things requires that we define them as being other than their existence.

We also understand what things are regardless of their existence (e.g. unicorns, vampires, etc.). Therefore, every contingent being's essence (i.e. those by which we understand the things of the cosmos according to their kind) is not the existence they have. Since a contingent being's essence does not guarantee its existence, we must appeal to an extrinsic cause for its existence.

Since contingent beings do not exist necessarily, we must appeal to external beings to account for their existence, but appealing to contingent beings to account for other contingent beings will cause an infinite regress. Therefore, contingent beings will not suffice to account for their existence.

Aquinas thus concluded that the cosmos exists but does not exist though itself, and everything open to our common experience exists contingently. An appeal to the cosmos, however, will not suffice to explain the cosmos' contingency.

Finally, there must exist some transcendent Being who is the ultimate cause of the cosmos' nexus of conditioned causality. In other words, there must exist a transcendent Being whose essence is His own existence and thereby exists through the power of His own essence.He must exist this way. Otherwise, He will not have His own reason for existing and would cease to exist necessarily.

There must also be no possibility in this transcendent Being for being something other than what He is. This Being, in other words; must be purely actual, indeterminate, or unrestricted being and existence. We shall henceforth call this subsistent existence God.

What name could we give for God that best expresses who He is? We must name God using an extraordinary mode of predication that is distinct from the modes of predication used for contingent beings. Since Being is God's proper name; the infinitive of the verb, being (viz. 'to be') best expresses His indeterminate existence. The propositions "God is the One who is 'to be,'" 'God is He that is,' and 'God is' best communicate His name.

Aquinas also quoted from a passage in St. John of Damascus' Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, which reads that God's name denominates an "infinite ocean of substance." In other words, God is the sheer act of 'to be' itself, the least imperfect name for God.

The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Old Testament traditions speak to the Lord's name as well but from the standpoint of divine revelation. Surprisingly, they all claim that God revealed His name to Moses:

Then Moses said to God, "If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?'" God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM." And he said, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you,'"

God also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you': this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations." (Exodus 3:13-15)

The Douay-Rheims translation also expresses God's name as the Septuagint reads it: "God said to Moses: I AM WHO AM. He said: Thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: HE WHO IS, hath sent me to you" (Exodus 3:14). I AM, HE WHO IS, YHWH (Hebrew: יהוה), or the Lord's name is the God of the Bible and the God of Israel. More specifically; the verb form, YHWH, derives from the triconsonantal root היה (h-y-h) 'to be.' Indeed, the Lord's name integrates rather well with God as Being itself.

Moses and the Burning Bush

The biblical authors also wrote the book of Exodus about ten centuries before the coming of Christ; writing how God, with Moses' help, freed the enslaved Israelites from the Egyptian rulers and established a covenant with God on Mount Sinai.

They also claimed that the narrative had taken place thirteen centuries before the coming of Christ. Interestingly, the biblical authors wrote the Pentateuch long before philosophy began in ancient Greece. Yet, the earliest and most archaic arguments for God's existence date at around 400-340 B.C., beginning mostly with Plato and Aristotle's arguments, and later with Aquinas' arguments into the High Middle Ages.

How did the ancient Israelites know God's name, thousands of years before the Greeks and the Medieval Scholastics knew it? The ancient Israelites constantly fought with one another with no time for theoretical study. With that said, however, they claimed to know God's name not in the way in which the Greeks had. They claimed that it was revealed to them by God.

God, moreover, established a series of covenants with different people over many centuries. They all ruined them by turning away from Him. Despite that fact, however, God reinstated new covenants in order to unite Himself with His people.

Moreover, later prophecies claimed that the Lord would  redeem Israel from her misdeeds and reign as King in an everlasting covenant with all nations. The Messiah, as they called Him, will descend from the Davidic bloodline in order to do so. In fact, the New Testament references these claims Gospels' genealogies, tracing Jesus Christ's ancestry from the Old Covenant:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Ammin'adab, and Ammin'adab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Bo'az by Rahab, and Bo'az the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king…

and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:1-17)

Ezekiel, the Prophet

Moreover, a priest and prophet, Ezekiel, envisioned God leaving the corrupt temple of Jerusalem and restoring order: "Then he led me to the gate, the gate facing toward the east; and behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the way of the east... And the Spirit lifted me up and brought me into the inner court; and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house" (Ezekiel 43:1-5). Ezekiel's prophetic vision prefigured Christ's triumphal entry from the Mount of Olives, just east of Jerusalem, to the temple.

Jesus Christ also fulfilled Ezekiel's prophesy by driving the corrupt out of his temple: "[Jesus Christ] entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling, saying to them, 'It is written, 'and my house shall be a house of prayers,' but you have made it a robbers' den'" (Luke 19:45, 46).

On a further note, Jesus Christ's name, "'YHWH or He who is' saves, the Messiah," also testifies to God's self-revelation to Moses. In a particular passage in John's gospel, Jesus Christ urged his fellow Jews to have faith that He and His Father are one. When Jesus told them that Abraham was glad when he came to Him, the Jews asked Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" (John 8:57). Jesus then replied by reaffirming His divinity: "'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am'" (John 8:58).

Finally, Jesus also intimately expressed His love towards His present and future disciples at the Garden of Gethsemane, where he had prayed an act of petition before the Sanhedrin took him prisoner to be crucified for blasphemy:

When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you, just as you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him. Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ. I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.

Angel Consoling Jesus

I revealed your name to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you gave me is from you, because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them. And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are. When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you.

I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely. I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.

I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.

And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me. Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me. I made known to them your name and I will make it known, that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them. (John 17)

Jesus Christ