Onus probandi

[W]herever any precept of traditional morality is simply challenged to produce its credentials, as though the burden of proof lay on it, we have taken the wrong position. The legitimate reformer endeavours to show that the precept in question conflicts with some precept which its defenders allow to be more fundamental, or that it does not really embody the judgement of value it professes to embody.

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

What happened to the nihil obstat and imprimatur?

[T]he very thought of an imprimatur on the front of a book—the approbation of a bishop, allowing the book to be printed on the grounds that it contains safe doctrine—is something that drives some people almost out of their minds with indignation.

Thomas Merton, The Seven Story Mountain It has been a very long time since I thought of the nihil obstat and the imprimatur. Do they still do that?

I’m not asking that question in the spirit of “How barbaric!”, but simply because it feels like decades since I saw one. Inasmuch as the Roman Catholic Church has no power in the US, or anywhere in the world so far as I know, to prevent publication of a book, the nihil obstat or imprimatur would serve, if used, entirely as a guide to the faithful, and I cannot object to that.

Orthodoxy and Israel

The prophecy of Isaiah 42 about Israel’s king was fulfilled in Christ and His Church, and in this it is typical of all the Old Testament passages about the Kingdom of God. However, within the last century or so, a school of thought has arisen (sometimes called “Dispensationalism”) which sees the Old Testament prophecies of Israel’s restoration fulfilled in the creation of the modern State of Israel. For this school, the “Israel” in the Old Testament prophecies refers to the Jews generally and the Zionist state in particular. … Whatever one’s sympathy for the State of Israel, it must be recognized that this school of interpretation is in flat contradiction to the apostolic view of the Old Testament prophecies. Each and every time the Old Testament prophecies are quoted by the apostles, it is in connection with Christ and His Church.

Lawrence R. Farley, The Gospel of Matthew.

I could say “this is the Orthodox agnosticism about the Israeli nation-state,” but I think that would be too narrow. Rather, the claim is that it is the Biblical view, with which claim I agree.

This do in remembrance

If recollecting Christ’s sacrifice cognitively were the only purpose of the sacrament, then we would do just as well skipping those tiny plastic cups and wafers that taste like cardboard and simply recite the Scriptures instead.

Alan Noble, Disruptive Witness

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Only wonder understands anything.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

I don’t do any of the major social media, but I have two sub-domains of the domain you’re currently reading: (a) You can read most of my reflexive stuff, especially political here. (b) I also post some things on my favorite no-algorithm social medium.