A fascinating medieval disputation.

The decayed idea that scholasticism can be dispensed with as futile arguments over angels and pins disintegrates quickly upon honest examination. Yes, there is bad scholasticism, but that is light years away from the scholasticism bad! reigning in secular and too many Catholic minds.

For those on the inside, it is a treasure house of carefully-reasoned thought. 

For example: What is the "motive" of the Incarnation?

The Angelic Doctor said that it happened because man had sinned. 

Per the Subtle Doctor, Blessed John Duns Scotus, it was willed for itself. 

An introduction:

Though it has its roots in the writings of the Church Fathers, it did not receive its first systematic treatment until the time of medieval scholasticism. At that juncture, opposing theses were advanced by two of the most authoritative scholastic theologians of the 13th century: St. Thomas Aquinas and Bl. John Duns Scotus. 

The former, which we may call the Thomistic thesis, argued that if Adam had not sinned, God would not have become man. Thomas wrote the following in his Summa Theologica: “the work of the Incarnation was ordained by God as a remedy for sin; so that, had sin not existed, the Incarnation would not have been.”1 Thus, for Thomas, the only reason for the Incarnation is the redemption of fallen man. 

The Scotistic thesis, on the other hand, argued that the Incarnation was willed by God from all eternity prior to any consideration of sin, and thus it would have come about even had Adam not sinned. For Scotus, God created the world and everyone in it for the sake of Christ, sin or no sin. Christ, then, was not an afterthought of God, but rather the first thought, so to speak. 

The essay focuses on the Scotistic Thesis for the Universal Primacy of Christ and is an excellent explanation of it.

Definitely worth contemplating.

Yeah, but...wouldn't they have to be?

An interesting, thumbs-up review of the V reboot which starts on ABC tonight.

Leaving the political subtext aside, I found this part about the religious angle interesting:

A handful of dissidents holds out against the rapturous reception given the Vs. Some are simply uneasy, such as the youthful priest Father Jack, who sharply criticizes the Vatican's embrace of the Vs as divine creations: "Rattlesnakes are God's creatures, too."

Unless they were machine life/generated, they'd have to be part of the divine creative order, correct? I'm a little nervous about the Vatican part potentially devolving into a "Visitors' Pope" plot thread, but I'll hold fire until it happens.

Discuss!

[Oh, and one more thing: it's nice to see that they preserved that part of the original, which featured a Catholic priest as a member of the resistance, one determined to convert the aliens, to boot. The Sci-Fi Channel re-broadcast the original two series over the weekend. It held up OK, but shows its age in spots. The main problem is the acting, which, apart from the ever-reliable Michael Ironside as the cynical mercenary-turned-resistance mastermind and Robert Englund as the naifish friendly (!) alien, was generally flat.

Memo to producers of sci-fi series: forget the effects budget. If you want it to work, get a good cast. That will save you even when you lose the thread of the plot. See, e.g., Galactica (2004), Battlestar.]

A question of sacramental theology.

You know, no big whoop.

Heather's wrestling with a question on how to discuss the Real Presence over at her blog. I think she's got it right, but any constructive input would be welcome.