Franciscan Pedagogy | Constructing A Bonaventurian Cosmogony

I have attempted to plot key ideas found across St. Bonaventure's works into one comprehensible graph, namely:

(1) plurality of substantial forms, (2) divine ideas, (3) individuation, (4) transcendentals, (5) triads. THE FIRST PRINCIPLE (Primum Principium)

St. Bonaventure begins his philosophical theology, with the First Principle, who he testifies as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He insists that this Principle is the fundamental cause of each and every thing in heaven and earth.

The Laws | On Music

„Music stirs our hearts and engages our souls in ways we can’t describe. We are taken beyond our earthly banishment back to the divine melody Adam knew when he sang with the angels, and when he was whole in God, before his exile.“
— St. Hildegard von Bingen
In our quest to restore The Laws in the Catholic Church, we stumble upon an art, and nay, not any art, but a liberal art that served as a pillar of Christendom, and the noble pagan civilizations which preceded her.

Music.

St. Hildegard's words should be remembered throughout.

Summa De Imperio Tertio | The State

When the Sudetenland was annexed, Hitler ordered the dismissal of anti-Nazi civil servants without pension. This order was suppressed by the state bureaucracy; Hitler effectively ignored.

This was the power of the German civil service. What is so often forgotten about discourse about the Nazi's rise to power, is that the Nazis themselves inherited a self-reproducing class of prestigious civil servants hailing from families with long-standing traditions of civil service. Its members were educated and efficient.

Do Muslims worship the same God that Christians do?

Yes; but the way the terms are defined in answering this can make the question irrelevant to providing anything substantial that is not already known by understanding what “God” means.
A simple recourse to the first operation of the mind will suffice: apprehension (essence of terms).

God can be defined by a) nature, or b) grace.

If we are defining God by His nature, then any sufficient demonstration of classical theism and reason will be affirmative.

🧵Seirai of the Catholic Faith

In Platonism, there exists the term Seira (cord or rope), which is understood as a chain or divine series which anchors the particular soul, and actively works towards its divinization.

Outlined below is my own schema, as adopted to Catholicism. The thread is structured as follows:

a) Brief Outline of the Neoplatonic Seirai

b) Outline of the Catholic Seirai
- (i) On the Divine Attributes
- (ii) On the Angels and Saints
- (iii) On the Natural Correspondences
- (iv) On Mary as the Mediatrix

Summa De Imperio Tertio | New Constitution & Senate

During the NSDAP's rule, the legal basis for their rule was questioned.

The state bureaucracy believed and operated as if the Weimar Constitution was intact, whilst some of the NSDAP's members believed it no longer existed. Talks of forming a new constitution was active in think tanks since the early years of the new regime.

Previously, Gregor Strasser was writing a new constitution before they ever came to a power, but his work was thrown out by the time Hitler became leader.

Summa De Imperio Tertio | NSDAP

There were three institutions known as the "Three Pillars of the Reich". The first was (1) the State, the second was (2) the NSDAP, and the third was (3) the Army.

But before we tackle the state apparatus, the NSDAP itself must be covered. This will be divided into three relevant categories:

(i) Vertical Structure of the NSDAP
(ii) Reich Leadership of the NSDAP
(iii) Factional History of the NSDAP

Any and all discussions of the planned Reichsreform and the NSDAP Constitution will be in separate threads.

Seven Grades of Excellence 📖

I drew the table below as a reference for how I’ve categorized my readings, dividing things into that which pertains principally with the senses, intellect, and spirit, and then proceeded by the Platonic dialogues, Scripture, Catholic writings, etc. The seven grades of excellence are: natural, habituated, civic, purificatory, contemplative, exemplary, and hieratic.

In proper fashion, the Scriptures contains the totality of the essences of most things. The Platonic dialogues seem almost entirely focused on philosophy per se.

The Pythagorean Theorem 📐

Everyone knows what the theorem is:
a² + b² = c² ; the relation of the sides of a right triangle.

But this formula is *algebra*; the Greeks at the time did not have algebra. They did not think of this theorem in algebraic terms! It goes much deeper. It is easy to assume that these mathematical propositions were thought of in purely mathematical terms; as practical solutions to certain problems.

But Robert Hahn says that we must first ask, 𝐰𝐡𝐲 did Pythagoras (and Thales) attempt to find this solution in the first place?

FILIOQUE: A THREAD 🕊️
The distinction of persons in God is relation and origin.

The Son is second in rank because He receives His being from the Father.

The Spirit is third in rank; and so receives His being from the Father and the Son. If He did not, He would not be distinct. The Filioque controversy is a linguistic difference, a patristic difference, a logical difference, and an ecclesiological issue. I thus aim to only discuss the following:

a) Why It Was Obvious in the West
b) A Western Defense (St. Bonaventure)
c) An Eastern Defense (St. Basil)