Abstract

An atheist known for satirical videos on Christianity recently released an update to “The Story of Suzie” video, which depicts Christians as delusional for praying to God for help amid tragedies.

The animated video features a devout religious character named Suzie who sees divine love and intervention everywhere while the narrator suggests otherwise.

Before going to bed, Suzie prays asking Jesus to heal the sick and ease the suffering in the world. But when she wakes up, “the problems of the world were still there,” said the narrator. Suzie rationalizes the result by believing that “somehow it was all part of God’s plan.”

Produced by The Thinking Atheist, the video implies that while Suzie continues to seek God when there is violence, natural disasters, or illness, her prayers only serve to bring her comfort, not produce any real effect.

Dr. Normal L. Geisler, author of If God, Why Evil?, said the video contains a lot of misconceptions.

“You look at all of that [and] you sympathize with Susie because you think they (disasters, illnesses, etc.) are evil,” he said. “But if it’s evil, then there must be a standard for good. If there is a crooked line in this world then there must be a straight line. If there is a straight line then there must be God.”

Order Online: If God, Why Evil?

Continue reading at The Christian Post

The Logic of Desire

Aquinas on Emotion

http://cuapress.cua.edu/BOOKS/viewbook.cfm?Book=lold

When Thomas Aquinas completed his Treatise on the Passions, it was likely the longest sustained discussion of the emotions ever written. His influence on medieval and early modern philosophy was enormous, overshadowing every other medieval author on the topic of emotion. Although Aquinas’s account of emotion merits attention for its historical significance and enduring value, it remains neglected by philosophers and theologians.

With emotion emerging as a focus of interest in many disciplines, the time is ripe for a reconsideration of Aquinas’s contribution. Desire and emotion are central to Aquinas’s theological project, and his views on many topics, including the relationship between cognition and emotion, show remarkable prescience in the light of recent developments. Emotion is particularly important to his understanding of virtue and vice. Focusing on the Summa theologiae, Nicholas Lombardo contributes to the recovery, reconstruction, and critique of Aquinas’s account of emotion in dialogue with both the Thomist tradition and contemporary analytic philosophy. It considers Aquinas’s thought on emotion in its historical context and inner logic, and shows how it bears on larger issues in his anthropology and ethics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nicholas E. Lombardo is a Dominican priest engaged in research at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

“Nicholas Lombardo’s beautifully argued and carefully documented book is a persuasive retrieval of what Saint Thomas himself obviously regarded as essential to our understanding of the moral and spiritual life–even more important now than in his own day.”–Fergus Kerr, O.P., Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh

Ours is but a borrowed existence, freely given us by God, and He keeps us in existence because indeed He wills it so. Ours is but a goodness in which there is so much infirmity and even degradation; there is so much error in our knowledge. This thought, while serving to make us humble, brings home to us by contrast the infinite majesty of God. And then if it is a question of others and no longer of ourselves, if we have suffered disillusionment about our neighbor whom we had believed to be better and wiser, let us remember that he too has suffered disillusionment about us; let us remember that he too is perhaps better than we are, and that whatever is our own as coming from ourselves-our deficiencies and failings—is inferior to everything our neighbor has from God.

This is the foundation of humility in our relations with others. Lastly, we must admit that the disillusionments we ourselves experience, or which others experience through us, in view of the radical imperfection of the creature, are permitted that we may aspire more ardently to a knowledge and love of Him who is the truth and the life, whom we shall some day see as He sees Himself. We shall then understand the meaning of those words of St.Catherine of Siena: “The living, practical knowledge of our own wretchedness and the knowledge of God’s majesty are inseparable in their increase. They are like the lowest and highest points on a circle that is ever expanding.”

And the more we realize our own imperfections and limitations, the more we realize, too,that God has a right to be loved above all things by reason of His infinite wisdom and His infinite goodness. Our final observation is this: the supreme truth has Himself spoken to us: He hasrevealed Himself to us, as yet in an obscure manner, but it is the foundation ofour Christian faith. It is in the name of this supreme truth that Jesus speaks,when He says: “In truth, in truth, I say to you.” He is Himself the truth and the life,and by His help from day to day we must gradually live a better life. This far surpasses Plato’s ideal; no longer is it an abstract, philosophic ascent to the supreme truth, but the supreme truth which condescends to reach down to us inorder to raise us up to Himself. - Providence -Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. 1877-1964

The temptation of Christ in the wilderness is a fascinating account of the type of preparatory stage before his introduction into the ministry. For me, Hebrews 4:15 sums the passage under consideration well when it says, “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help.” This passage illustrates for me how Christ being our high priest forever can go through temptation and relate to humanity in their suffering but yet without sin.