This is Holy Saturday. A baptist friend of mine asked me tonight what happened today since I’ve been giving him a little daily rundown of Holy Week and the Triduum. Simply, we sit. We pray. We wait.
I was reading the liturgical texts for tonight’s Easter Vigil, when the Light of Christ shines forth once again. I was looking at the Exultet, an ancient prayer that is usually chanted by a deacon during the procession of the Easter Candle, and was struck by something I hadn’t noticed before:
“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
I had simply never thought of the Fall of Man via Adam like that. God in his infinite knowledge realized that the natural result of free will, with the temptation of the devil, would be Man’s decision to turn away from God. Just an interesting way to look at Adam’s sin.

For those keeping score at home, (c.f. ACC 310F professor) I submitted the first part of my application to the Priestly Formation Program yesterday to the Diocese. I still have quite a bit left including those long “Why do you feel called to be thinking about sorta kinda wanting to maybe someday think about and then maybe- if I’m really special- studying for the priesthood? Now, answer almost the same question again but use all different words.” It’s seriously not that bad, just a lot of those self-reflective questions. I never really got a huge kick out of doing them and still don’t. At least I know why I have done all of it but that… In either case, I think I’m an applicant now.
My final submission deadline (self-imposed) is April 28th. As part of the application process, I have to get a lengthly psychological profile taken and that will be done on that day. I figure it’s far enough away to give me enough time and it’s concrete enough so I can’t push it back for bad reasons.
I’ll keep you all up to speed on the progress of the application.

When is non-knowledge lying? What is non-knowledge? Non-knowledge is knowledge that exists but you are not aware of it. For example, person A asks you if you know John Doe. You know John Doe but only by face, not by name. When you tell the person “No, I don’t know John Doe”, does that constitute lying? I would venture to say that it does not.
Would that also include things within you? Like if someone asks “Do you like green beans?” and you, with all of your past knowledge and self-experience, reply that you do not like green beans and later discover that you do, is that lying? Or if you reply that you do not and yet you still eat/ate them because you enjoyed the taste of the salt that you placed on it, is it lying to say you do not like green beans, knowing that liking green beans means you enjoy them in their fullness?
Just wondering.

I’m working on a lengthy paper looking at the problem of evil and I’ve ran into something simple that I can’t get past. I’m defining the connection between God and goodness. I’m stating the God is not above good because that would indicate that good/evil is arbitrary. Now here lies my problem: what’s a solid reason why an infinite, all-good God would not make good/evil arbitrary? The only givens I have stated is that there is one God who is infinite, all-knowing and all-good. Also, I have stated that good is not above God since nothing can be above an infinite being and demand the being’s obedience. In the end, I’m going to state that God is good and so evil isn’t a creation of God, just the manifestation of our free will to seperate ourselves from God. I should probably figure out a way to explain the devil/demons; rather, do angels have free will? By nature, I would say no but where is the line between their need to obey God and their options not to. Satan turned on God which indicates some individual will but I’m not sure how to balance that with free will, etc.
ANYHOW, if you can help me figure out how to explain why God would not make good/evil arbitrary, let me know.

“Tis better to smell like melon than to smell like ass.” – Maure Rose Kennedy