20 Comments
Aug 13, 2023Liked by Douglas Farrow

Packed with insight. I’ll be reading this more than once. Thank you.

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This is an excellent article Douglas, as Lolene said, I'll be rereading it several times.

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It's gratifying to hear this. As I intimated near the beginning, I wrote and rewrote it several times, never quite satisfied and sometimes quite frustrated. But if it has come out in a form that warrants the attention, I am thankful. I hope the notes also prove useful to those with a special interest in this or that.

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Profound and time-stopping essay , giving me a grasp of the entire view I seek.

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As I read- and make notes- and then reread what you are saying , I'm both encouraged and awed by the scholarship and clarity.

The comments are merited, there are real thinkers here who've long sought real meat to get our teeth into. Being sick of the pre chewed ,half digested pap that passes for " cultural Christian comment" since this Covidiocty began in 2020( and ,of course preassembled by the usual suspects we all know now).

The annotations are brilliant and are works of wonder in themselves in places. You've taken this duty very seriously, And we are very grateful.

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God save us.

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If she had chaired, would we be here in the first place?

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The earlier exchange may have been through your “A Biblical Frame” or one of you other publishing connections. Perhaps C2C?

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, not dictionary.

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I very much appreciate your work, Douglas. It’s is remarkable. Earlier, in a piece where you wrote about nominalism, we had a bit of back and forth. Here you mention it again. I would be grateful if you could write more about that especially given that the term has two meanings. From Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy: “The word 'Nominalism', as used by contemporary philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition, is ambiguous. In one sense, its most traditional sense deriving from the Middle Ages, it implies the rejection of universals. In another, more modern but equally entrenched sense, it implies the rejection of abstract objects.Feb 11, 2008

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These two sense are linked, of course. I can't recall which literature I may have mentioned in the earlier exchange, but presumably chap. 7 of Theological Negotiations (referenced here at n. 34) which opens with a discussion of Anselm and Roscelin, when nominalism's nature-less tree was being planted by the Canon of Compiègne, and concludes with a comparison of Anselm and Descartes. The influence of nominalism and voluntarism on the subsequent history of philosophy and culture is so vast as to defy any very brief explanation.

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Weil died in 1943. I think you mean Simone Veil.

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Thanks for spotting that, now corrected.

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Good.

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Think how different it would be had Weil chaired!

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I trace the crucial nominalist first step to be that of dum diversas (1452) which greenlit perpetual servitude for African pagans, which meant eugenics (slaves can't marry and have children) so no family. So they do not have a common "human nature", according to the church.

Is it possible Luther was scandalized by this bankster written document?

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I agree the "discovery" aspect needs to be buried. However, the entirely orthogonal issue of "perpetual servitude" needs true reckoning before burial.

There is a difference between the governance of indigenous land, and the kidnap from one continent to another with no chance to reunite with family of origin. Which underlines the "perpetual" aspect which exposes the phrase to be about slavery, not serfdom or indenture.

Especially if this eventual intercontinental kidnap was not envisioned by Nicholas (and it may have been by his bankster whisperers), does it not nevertheless deserve a specific apology? I am guessing it's not getting that because most people are unaware of that phrase and it's seeding of the Atlantic slave triangle.

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What a document says and how it is used are two different things. One needs to examine both, and to show how it was used, not simply assume or assert that it may have been used in this way or that. One also needs to consider the corrections that were made (some of which I mention) and to enquire whether the document itself represented a misuse of papal authority, attached to a misconception of papal sovereignty.

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I am a Catholic and wish I was wrong about this. But the fact that remains is my point *also* significantly explains why there is such a historic under-representation of blacks in the Church in America.

It also explains the current capture of the Church to the same mercantilist eugenics forces today...especially those "public health"-ocrats of which you write.

I am not saying the Church ran the slavery triangle...that is largely due to British (Protestant) interests, but the ball was set in motion when the Portuguese were told, "Yes you may".

And the "corrections" have been too whispered. For example, Joel Panzer's writing on the Church and slavery is mute on Dum Diversas, citing only the papal positive writings. On the other hand, Paul Kengor's recent book on the same topic features Dum Diversas as its first chapter...but goes on to rebut it by talking about all of the other times the Church spoke against slavery. But that is like Mom saying all day long, "no you may not access the cookie jar", but when Dad's home he says (Just once!) "yes you may raid the cookie jar". That once! is all it takes for the kids to rationalize that the cookie jar is morally legal, despite Mom's injunction to the contrary. What it really takes is for Dad to own up to and repair his error, not to ignore it or expect Mom's truisms to take hold without acknowledging his error.

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