Continued from previous parts, same video.
- I 51:35
- "early Church Fathers"?
Well, St Augustine actually did take it for granted that space has a numeric reflection of Holy Trinity - it has three dimensions because God is Three Persons and wanted this to be hinted at by space, when He created it.
I left Palmarianism after hearing their Catechism includes the statement that "Antichrist sees the world from the fourth dimension, but the Very Pure Virgin from the eighth dimension." Fourth? Eighth? There are three!
- II 54:58
- Roger Bacon quote:
"Without experiment, nothing can be adequately known. An argument proves theoretically, but does not give the certitude to remove all doubt; nor will the mind repose in the clear view of truth, unless it finds its way by experimentation."
As given in translation, "experiment" and "experimentation" can be taken to mean "experience of arranged experiments" rather than experience in general, including the one that the argument is based on.
He is wrong. [If this interpretation is correct.]
Argument must be based on sound principle and on sound experience. But the latter is not always best available by arranging experiments.
Arranged experiments about the brain tell us significantly less about the nature of the mind than the general experience of reasoning, the general experience of moralising do.
Miracles by CSL (1947) gives us a metaphysics if the mind which Baconian experiments on brain matter do not give us, and cannot give us. He is basing it on general and exceptionless experience. Like Aristotle did.
- III 55:56
- Bacon called uninstructed popular opinion an obstacle to transmitting truth.
He differs from Aristotle. And he was not quite backed up by the Church.
- IV Before continuing around 56:00,
- two observations. Or three.
1) Roger Bacon was very inimical to St Albert, whose feast day is today. The latter was a Sorbonne Aristotelian (excluding Averroists). St Albert is a Saint. Roger Bacon is not. Sir Francis Bacon of Verulam who repeated him was an enemy of the Catholic Church.
2) Still Roger Bacon was right to a limited extent that arranged experiment can supply lacunae in general experience. He applied this in optics, and he got the making of eye glasses going, thanks to that. I suppose you owe him one, and sooner or later so might I. When Newton got a new optic theory about the nature of colour, he did in fact arrange an experiment to exclude an obvious alternative explanation.
However, when Newton proposed a new theory about movements of celestial bodies (inluding on his view also Earth) he made no experiment to exclude the then common and pretty obvious alternative explanation of a God moving the Universe on a daily basis and angels moving single celestial bodies on slower periodic bases.
So the Newtonian theory lacks a real experimental basis of the kind Roger Bacon was looking for.
3) Unlike Bacon of Verulam and Roger Bacon, Aristotle and such disciples (or part disciples) of his as St Albert and St Thomas, did not consider "untutored opinion of the masses" or whatever the wording as an obstacle to knowledge acquisition.
On the contrary. Untutored masses all believing a thing is prima facie an argument for it. Not a very strong one, but at least not one against it.
The learned believing a thing is also a prima facie, but incomplete argument for what they believe.
Argument becomes much stronger when both untutored masses and the learned believe a thing.
And of course, stronger the better basis you have of this being the case in diverse cultures.
The idea of all mankind previous to oneself being wrong and oneself discovering the truth by ignoring all of it (as the both Bacons proposed one ignore it) is a bit megalomaniac.
However, that masses and learned should each give independently a witness to the truths that are the most obvious, has been lately tampered with by compulsory school putting certain portions and schools among the learned as a kind of intellectual tutors to the masses. That a PhD scientist and a lumberjack today are both likely to be evolutionist is no real argument for evolution, since the days when teaching of evolution became not only licit but compulsory.
- V 56:29
- Too bad Pius XII did not study St Albert and St Thomas more than he did. He might have avoided the "reconciliation with science" or "premature capitulation to science" on November 22 1951!
But alas, he had already, it would seem, as canonic lawyer advising Pope Benedict XV, gone against them and against Council of Vienne on the issue of taking interest on monetary loans. Too bad.
When it comes to verifying for oneself, modern scientists are very much less likely than St Albert to approve of the attempt, unless you agree with established opinion.
- VI 57:11
- Monsignor Nicolas Steno (he died as a bishop, as I recall!) was indeed a founder of Geology (after St Albert). He was also, as his colleague Tas Walker has remarked (colleague in geology, not in ecclesiastic office) a Young Earth Creationist, and a Flood Geologist.
Thanks for bringing him up!
- VII 58:50
- plus and minus signs in Italian book keeping is as far as I know a Franciscan achievement, done previous to St Ignatius.
The + for the credit sign alludes to the creed and the sign of the Cross.
The - for the debit side looks like a line striking out something. It alludes to "dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris" in the Lord's Prayer.
[It is possible a Jesuit later took it from book keeping to mathematical operations, previously marked "a.=adde" or "s.=subtrahe".]
- VIII 1:00:13
- Giambattista Riccioli, SJ, was also a believer in angelic movers of the Heavenly Bodies.
Unlike St Thomas and like Hebrew Astronomical theory, he seems to have not believed God moved the globality of Heaven. [But in that case, the coordination of angels carrying celestial bodies point to them following a common command.] I have it from his own book.
- IX Before continuing past 1:00:13,
- references for Steno and Riccioli.
"Upon request of Duke Johann Friedrich of Hanover, Pope Innocent XI made him Vicar Apostolic for the Nordic Missions on 21 August 1677. He was consecrated titular bishop of Titiopolis on 19 September by Cardinal Barbarigo and moved to the Lutheran North.
In the year after he was made bishop, he was probably involved in the banning of publications by Spinoza, There he had talks with Gottfried Leibniz, the librarian; the two argued about Spinoza and his letter to Albert Burgh, then Steno's pupil. Leibniz recommended a reunification of the churches. Steno worked at the city of Hannover until 1680.
After John Frederick death's, Prince-Bishop of Paderborn Ferdinand of Fürstenberg appointed him as Auxiliary Bishop of Münster (Church Saint Liudger) on 7 October 1680. The new prince-elector Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover was a Protestant. Earlier, Augustus' wife, Sophia of Hanover, had made fun of Steno's piousness; he had sold his bishop's ring and cross to help the needy. He continued zealously the work of counter reform begun by Bernhard von Galen."
English Wiki : Nicolas Steno
section Religious studies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Steno#Religious_studies
So he was successor of one von Galen and remoter predecessor of another one, Clemens August von Galen who opposed Hitler on Euthanasia!
Now for Riccioli and angelic movers ...
New blog on the kid : What Opinion did Riccioli call the Fourth and Most Common One?
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/08/what-opinion-did-riccioli-call-fourth.html
I give the quote, a resumé of nonquoted name dropping, and link to the pages of the scanned work itself.
- X 1:04:47,
- Father Roger Boskovich ... I think I looked him up on logarithmic tables one day ...
His theory of Natural Philosophy was before the Settele case and before dissolution of Jesuit order, will have a look.
CDL : Roger Boscovich : A theory of natural philosophy
Author/translator: Boscovich, Ruggero Giuseppe, 1711-1787; Child, J. M. (James Mark)
https://archive.org/details/theoryofnaturalp00boscrich
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