Sample of James Larson and FM emails correspondence: Chesterton..lacking in depth...I believe..Thomistic metaphysics, and especially what constitutes the substance of any created thing. Once this is understand, the human mind and heart are completely liberated from any false thinking or philosophy which seeks to capture the mind to reductive science. ...

Jim,

Sorry it took so long to get back. Went on vacation. 

Your life story was a real eye opener.

How do you explain your temptation to desire (or will) non existence as against Thomistic teaching as you mentioned?

Any books you recommend on Thomistic metaphysics on what constitutes substance?

I have been researching Scotus who was deeply intelligent, but in my opinion he went wrong, if I am getting him correctly and if the scholars I listened to are conveying him correctly, by placing will over intellect and his strange idea against Thomistic viva negativa and rejecting we know God by analogy but somehow can know God directly in some way. 

It almost resembles Nietzsche's will to power except Scotus accepts reason and de Lubac's everything is grace thereby reducing everything to nature so grace is not a gift but a necessity of nature in which the Catholic Church and Christ's Redemption by His crucifixion and resurrection are rendered meaningless or as one of many ways to God except Scotus would reject those things because his accepted the faith. Unfortunately, I think his ideas had consequences which may have lead to this ideas. 

I did find his proof of God interesting.

Merry Christmas,

Fred

Sent from my MetroPCS 4G LTE Android device

------ Original message------

From: James Larson

Date: Wed, Dec 11, 2019 6:49 AM

To: mrtnzfred@aol.com;

Cc:

Subject:Re:

Fred,

This article (except probably for the introductory note, added in order to make it relevant to what is now occurring) was written over a decade ago. It was the backbone of what I was trying to do with the War Against Being website.

No, regrettably, I have not put anything together for children, although I have taught it somewhat to a few homes-schoolers in the past. 

I read Chesterton's The Dumb Ox years ago, along with his book on St. Francis. I remember thinking that some of his insights were good. I haven't read much of Chesterton, but in what I have read I usually come away irritated and unsatisfied. His insights, while being piquant and often touching on the surface of profound truths, yet seem to me to be established in cleverness of expression (often paradoxical) and frustratingly lacking in depth. His obvious ability to use the English language may convince for a while, but his lack of metaphysical depth does not fully convinces,or provide the clarity of intellectual vision  in order to truly perceive the depths of reality. Ultimately, I believe that in the intellectual realm,this vision can only be obtained through understanding the depths of Thomistic metaphysics, and especially what constitutes the substance of any created thing. Once this is understand, the human mind and heart are completely liberated from any false thinking or philosophy which seeks to capture the mind to reductive science. It restores everything to God. It restores divine poetry to all of God's creation. There is no poetry which can compete with Thomistic metaphysics actually seen, understood, and incorporated fully into an integral vision of all of reality. 

The strange part is that I was given a gift to see this, at least in seed form, even before I knew anything about Thomistic metaphysics. It came to me in the process of my own conversion, and through the Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation. I don't know if you ever read my autobiographical article titled Beauty (on the War Against Being website). It deals with this subject, and is found here: http://waragainstbeing.com/partviii/

                                                                                                                                                           God Bless, Jim

On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 11:15 PM mrtnzfred@aol.com <mrtnzfred@aol.com> wrote:

Hi Jim,

Going through your antidote post. It is extremely important. Have you done child version of it yet. As you see below I want to print it out and slowly hopefully summarize it and keep its essence while writing something that can get the average reader to read it and understand it with some help maybe from my niece. It will probably take a while. Have you read GK Chesterton's Dumb Ox? Would you say it is an attempt at this. Are there any authors you recommend in fiction or poetry or prose that get this across.Thanks for all.

In JMJ,

Fred