Safe Haven

What shall we say then? In the midst of a rather rareified discussion about exactly how God moves the will, (among adherents of Thomist Catholic theology) Dr. Feingold, AKA The Hebrew Catholic Jack Collins, never fails to use simple, earthy examples. At that point, I figured a humorous impertinence would do the room some good. So I said, "All this talk of actual grace [prevenient grace that moves the as yet unsaved to take a step toward God] and sanctifying grace [the justifying grace, infused by the Holy Spirit, which includes the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity/love] is beautiful and lovely and everything, but, assuming such distinctions are valid,--while recalling the Scripture in Ephesians, 'and you were dead in trespasses and sins...but God made us alive together with Christ....'--are you saying that actual grace takes a man from 'All Dead' to 'Mostly Dead'? But how can you receive, respond to, or reject grace if you are dead?" Tha...

I was recalling a "conversation" of sorts last night (it was a 'chat' over the interwebs) about the Scripture in more ancient tounges (Latin, Greek) and I was lavish in my exhortation that she should learn the biblical Greek, (OK, fine, the Hebrew as well, if possible) being in possession of more than a modicum of facility in acquiring language (or at least the discipline to do it). In any case, I noted, to the great warmth of my own heart, that God, in his goodness, made the most important parts of the Bible to be fairly easy syntactically. (John 1, 1 John, Colossians 1:15-20, for example) A Roman 5 year old could read 1 John, I'm almost certain. Well, I'm not hard-core enough to go to the Greek (today), but I went to the Vulgate, first to the Prologue of (St.) John's Gospel, (and a little past) then to Colossians 1, starting with the greeting, and then I skipped to the Christ-hymn. (St.) Jerome chose an interesting word after telling us that "he is ...

5 Non-Football Thoughts on Super Bowl Sunday 5. That Maria lady was pretty. I can't spell her name, and I don't care. 4. Jen Aniston's apparent offense was really wanting to have a baby before she lost the chance. What a psycho! Why would she want to do that? [sarcasm] 3. Harrison Ford was highly intoxicated. It was some mixture of funny and shameful. 2. If you have to tell us why they are famous, they're not famous. 1. I promise, Keith Urban can sing better than that.

I got suckered on that whole, [paraphrase] "fierce moral urgency of change" deal with Obama. Still detaining people indefinitely for possibly dubious reasons; "Gitmo" is still open; American troops in two hot theaters of war; Lots of other stuff. But I don't agree with Roger Simon, here. I was eager to hear what the president would say, and particularly on Egypt. I understood the president to say, if you listen between the lines, as it were, that he had no idea what would happen, but it was up to Mubarak. What is almost unbearably irritating about Victor Davis Hanson is that his hawkish neoconservatism comes as a package deal with his anti-socialism. And with Obama, it's personal. I think that Obama's economic policy is totally wrong, as I have said a million times. But if he makes any gesture of nonviolence toward anybody, he is an "empty suit" who has "sold out our friends to our enemies." Or other such nonsense. One of the undera...