on my way!!!!

habang tumatagal lalo na akong nawawalan ng pagasa, habang tumatagal lumuluwag na ang mundo para sa kanya, habang umiikot ang mundo lumalala na ang pagikot din ng aking pagiisip. pagaalala, at pagkainis….. mahirap pala ang ganito ayon nga “kapag gusto mo ang isang tao kapag niyaya ka sasama ka, pero pag mahal mo naman ang isang tao gagawat gagawa ka ng paraan makasama mo lang sya”pero aking natanto na baka hindi nga yun ang gusto kong mangyari…. marami pa akong mapagdadaanan pero habang tumatagal nawawala na ako sa sarili ko disorder ba ito?, ano bang lunas dito?…. but im a philosopher, my will is better to the others it is possible if i pursue my will….. maghihintay nalang ako pero sa puntong di na pwede ang will ko im sure di ako makakapag moveon…….

concept of waiting! not now maybe later….

sa haba ng panahon ng bonding, sa haba ng pagsasama natin, sa haba ng dinaanan natin, sa haba na din ng pagkakakilala natin.. bakit ngayon pa, bakit ngayon ka pa mawawala?, naisip ko kung bakit? bakit nga ba? bakit nalang nagbago ang lahat? bakit nawala tayo sa direksyon ng direktor?, bakit nag iba nalang ang linya na dapat ay napakalambing… alam ko bawal pa ang lahat. bawal pa ang inaasam natin., sa dami narin ng pagsasama natin nanibago ako sa mga nangyayari, nagbago ako sa araw araw na pagkakamustahan natin.. alam ko na may time for this for that… pero panu kung makahanap ka ng iba? as a person who believes in you sana stay what you are natatakot ako sa mga nangyayari at sa kung ano pa ang mangyayari.. but as a philosopher who believes in you sabi ko na dati sa iyo ang laki ng tiwala ko sayo sa mga poems na ginawa wala na akong masulat kung di nasan ka na? ok ka lang ba? kailangan mo ba ako?,,, sa linggo linggong pagtitiis sa buwan buwan na paghihintay at sa taon taon na pagaasam isa lang ang iniisip ko….. hindi man ngayon baka sa tamang panahon………  at lam mo kung sino ka…. studies muna…

Plato’s Republic (Education)

Education is very important to us, as the Tabula Rasa of john locke, when we are born to this world the we have nothing but a void paper, nothing but as we go on, we experienced something, we experienced those our mind filled with words in a paper. Related to education we are incapable to learn everything without a process of learning, through that process we can point out what is true or false, we can say that this thing is real because we learn through the process of education that this is true its real.

In the academy of plato at the age of ten-years-old they are forcedly to enter the academy inside in the academy there’s a level or a stage to passed the level you must take the exam. Theres a system. And until they reach the highest level all passer whether a female or a male they become a philosopher king and they have a right to govern the state. So in this case education is very important to order the state they must the intellect to pass a law to keep the state well-ordered. In case of the guardians, education is very important, they must be gymnastike, intellect of course because as i have said a while a go, its needed to well ordered the state not just for being a strong but also for being intellect.

Plato’s belief that talent was distributed non-genetically and thus must be found in children born to all classes moves us away from aristocracy, and Plato builds on this by insisting that those suitably gifted are to be trained by the state so that they may be qualified to assume the role of a ruling class. What this establishes is essentially a system of selective public education premised on the assumption that an educated minority of the population are, by virtue of their education (and inborn educability), sufficient for healthy governance.

The Will to Believe

People have long been interested in the circumstances under which it is appropriate to believe.  Often, the source of this interest is the desire to believe something for which one has insufficient evidence.

A hypothesis is a proposition, or idea, thats presented to us as a possible belief. A live hypothesis is a proposition w/c it is, in fact, possible for us to believe, whereas a dead hypothesis is a proposition which it’s impossible for us to believe. An option is a decision between two hypotheses. A live option is a decision between two live hypotheses; a dead option is a decision btween two options at least one of which is dead. A forced option is a decision between two options which we can’t avoid making; an avoidable option is a decision between two options which we can avoid making. A momentous option is an irrevocable option for significant stakes; a trivial option is an option which is not irrevocable or for significant stakes. And finally, and most importantly of all, a genuine option is an option which is simultaneously living, forced, and momentous. But theres a problem from believing we are being subjecting to our beliefs. Its the non-intellectual we cant use our human reason to say that it is a true one. given that our beliefs are partially determined by factors other than reason, it remains to be asked whether this should be the case. Given that our will does plays a role in determining our belief, should we embrace this as a fact of psychological life, or should we struggle against it? we have two duties: 1. the duty to believe the truth, 2. the duty to not believe the false. These duties sometimes conflict. In order to believe the truth, we must have beliefs and so we risk having false beliefs. In order to avoid having false beliefs, we may avoid believing things and so we may risk losing true beliefs. blieving falsehoods is worse than failing to believe truths and so he recommends believing only things which are well-justified. Someone else might think that failing to believe truths is worse than believing falsehoods and so would recommend believing things which aren’t so well-justified. this decision is, itself, a “passional” one, motivated by non-rational factors. Because some beliefs, like the belief that avoiding falsehood is more important than attaining truth, cannot be adopted on the basis of logic alone, and because such beliefs are central to the entire enterprise of believing anything at all, it must be okay, sometimes, to believe things for non-rational reasons.

Ang Sa Akin Lang!!

Mahigit na sa dalawang buwan sa pagkakaupo dito darating din pala sa puntong ako ay tatayo at lilipat na sa ibang direksyon.. di ko inaasahan na sa pagkakaupo dito ay ang daming magagandang alaala ang aking natutunan habang ang oras ay gumagalaw sa dating pagkakagalaw!, madami ring mga gawain ang aking natapos at nagawa sa upuang ito o sa pwestong ito, napagalitan, kakulitan, kaawayan at kasiyahan… di ko napansin! ang mundo pala ay umiikot at ayaw ng pabalikin ako sa dating simula! bakit ba ako nandito? bakit ako napatigil? ………… biglang may tumunog! sino kayo? ano ang gagawin niyo? bigla akong napaisip bigla din ako kinabahan!! aalis na nga pala ako ang dating simula ngayon ay magwawakas na ang dating trabaho ay matatapos na ngunit mananatili pa rin sa isip ko na ang dating ito ay magsisimula pa rin!! -salamat at iiwan ko na kayo

Who Will Be the Next President?

Two Years to be exact the presidential Election.. Who is your Bet to become the Next President or the 15^th President of the Republic of the Philippines?. There’s a lot of Person Have a potential to come next, Popular?, Good Performances?, Strong Person?, a Religious Person?, a Busy man?, Good looking man/woman?, Intelligent?, or even a “ “CORRUPT” Person?……

Two years to be come but they start expose there Candidacy in a large “Karatolas” in long road of EDSA, in the Cover of Pink Urinal down street, T.V. Commercial like the “TIDE Commercial” – (Mas malaki ang Matitipid kapag bumili ng malaki), The Government Commercial Like “PAG-IBIG Commercial” – (Bakit ka pa mangungupahan pa kung kaya mo ng magkabahay na), the Milk Commercial – (don’t just drink but Two Glasses a day)…. A Great Start from them haha!!.

PAG IBIG ang kasagutan kabayan

OHA! OHA!

Metro Gwapito 2008, Metro Gwapo 2010

The Future President?

BF: The Next President..!!!!!

LABAN KA Dun!!

KaYa ang sabi Ni Mr. Palengke!!

Mas Makakatipid Pag Bumili ng Malakihan!! – 13 Pesos Savings

You Stolen the Presidency

“Not Once But Twice”

Galit Siya Lagot Ka!!

Gatas Dapat Twice A Day!!

Lumunok nalang tao ng maraming Bato!!

-Popularity?

Kapag May Sipag at Tiyaga ang Kailangan!!

“Panalo Ka!!”

-ST ang Kailangan

I’m the Winner of Last Election for VP Position not him!!

-may Potential?

I’m good Than Other!!

-Like Father like Son?

Babayaran ko ang Utang ng Pilipinas!! (peace)

-NGEK!!!

KaKasuhan ko ang Pope!!

-Talaga lang huh!!

Pabagsakin si PGMA at FG!! Haha

-lahat gagawin pansin nyo ba?

Para Sa Masa!!

-Pwede Pa! isang term

Maganda Itey!! Isa pang term kulang pa ang ZTE Tongpats!! -gahaman

But its just not the Popularity is the Character of a Great President, the Moral, The Physical, and Lastly the Spiritual Moral. The Filipino People want that character to become a next Pres. Don’t Predict Whats going on in the Future or don’t just focus what will happen yesterday but instead of that look what is going on right now!! (Doctrine of the mean) think big “walang magagawa ang panghuhula ang maganda bumoto ka ng maayos sa darating na election at magserbisyo ng tama!!. Ok ingat

-Christopher P. Taguinod

Confucius and Confucianism

Confucius (K’ung Fu-tzu) was born of a rather impoverished family of noble descent in the state of Lu (in modern Shantung). He quickly achieved a reputation for scholarship and learning. During his life, he witnessed the disintegration of unified imperial rule. He was a great admirer of the Duke of Zhou, and sought to convince various nobles to rule according to certain social customs he associated with early Zhou culture. These customs emphasized moral responsibility and the concept of the chün tzu. The chün tzu was any refined gentleman who embodied the virtue of benevolence while he maintained traditional rites, customs, and filial piety toward his ancestors, family, and the gods. Stereotypically, this gentleman was marked by his white beard, fine clothes, and long fingernails. Confucianism might be seen as a philosophy in which politics and government are an extension of morality and tradition. As long as the ruler remained benevolent, the government will naturally work toward the good of the people (Lau n. p.). A Confucian philosopher strove to be responsible, controlled, and temperate.

Confucius spent ten years traveling through the whole of China’s various states. He had ambitions of attaining a political position at one of the Chinese courts, but he never succeeded in this endeavor and spent most of his life as a teacher. Realizing that the warlike leaders paid no attention to his philosophy, Confucius returned to Lu, and he spent the rest of his life training a group of gifted and devoted students. The importance of Confucius lies in having been one of China’s first great teachers as well as a political philosopher. His policy was to accept anyone as a disciple provided that the student was genuinely eager to learn, and this idea was revolutionary in a society in which education was the exclusive privilege of the aristocracy. He is also one of the first Chinese philosophers to leave behind a collection of teachings that can be reliably ascribed to his authorship. This is the Lun yü, or the Analects as the work is commonly known in English.

In the Western Han, Confucianism became generally associated with a reverence for “ancient” books and “ancient gods.” It later grew to be the official state philosophy of the Chinese empire; it retained this preeminent position up until the twentieth-century. Confucianism ultimately became the basis of a state religion. While it was based on the ancient gods and rites, it was associated closely with philosophical ideals as well. Inevitably, the Master’s teachings became modified over the course of time. The official Confucian state religion, organized and maintained in Han times, ruthlessly exterminated local cults and destroyed the temples of wayside gods. All religious authority was centralized and focused in the capital city, while unorthodox belief was treated as mere superstition (Schafer 61). The Analects (Lun Yü) is a collection of Confucius’ sayings gathered in a single text, which is the only reliable record of his philosophy. The other “Confucian Classics” were compiled centuries after his death. The Analects is one of the pillars of Chinese culture and have been widely read across the centuries. The only other comparable book in Western Culture is the Bible (Lau, n. p.).

Mencius: Confucius inspired an entire school of Chinese thinkers. Probably the most illustrious thinker in his school was Mencius. Much like Confucius, Mencius traveled in different states for several years attempting to persuade rulers to adopt his philosophy with little success. He is best known for his argument that human nature is inherently good. He argues that humans are born with the capacity for distinguishing between right and wrong. Individuals may not know from childhood which acts are acceptable and which ones are not, but all children are capable of feeling shame, and once they learn which acts are good or bad, they have a natural tendency to approve of the former and disapprove of the latter. His argument was aimed at countering the then-current theory that human nature consists only of evil appetites, but he also sought to reinvigorate the traditional idea subscribed to Confucius that morality was decreed by heaven. Mencius successfully broke down the rigid intellectual barrier between human tendencies and heavenly decrees. He argued that morality is as much a part of human nature as selfish appetites, and the biological drives are as much a part of heavenly decree or the natural world as morality is. Another of the Mencius’ noteworthy arguments is his idea that the function of a ruler is to further the good of his subjects. If a ruler abuses his power, he is no longer acting as a ruler. Instead, he is just a “fellow,” and he has lost the mandate of heaven. The people then have the right to rebel against him. Many of Mencius’ ideas can be found in his “dialogue” concerning the transfer of rule from Yao to Shun.

Influences of Confucianism: In many ways, Confucian philosophy is a middle-ground between the harsh doctrines of the Legalist school of philosophy and Taoism. Legalist philosophy adheres strictly to rules and custom, but it emphasizes punishment and discipline, and it lacks the Confucian emphasis on kindness and contemplation. Likewise, the Confucian emphasis on rational practicality and common sense is something that Taoism lacks.

On the other hand, Taoist philosophy is in many ways much more flexible than Confucianism. Taoist writers seek to avoid being “boxed” by rules, definitions and empty words. They encourage a sort of intuitive and non-logical way of seeking balance in the world by resisting the desire to interfere with normal processes of nature. Taoism emphasizes wu wei–enlightened non-action rather than needless bustle and “busy-work” for its own sake. Legalism emphasizes wu yu–active attempts to modify human behavior for the better by restraining the evil impulses of humanity in a rigid hierarchy of law. Confucianism, while not completely incompatible with either philosophy, suggests that thoughtful contemplation is necessary in making decisions rather than blindly following rules (the Legalist philosophy) or letting luck and intuition dominate human behavior (the Taoist philosophy). Confucianism thus rejects the Taoist notion that virtue should be an almost-instinctive and unthinking reaction in the good man. While Confucianism shares the legalist desire to maintain tradition and behave according to appropriate ritual and precedent, Confucius rejects the rhetoric and imagery of violent conformity so often founded in Legalist documents.

St. Augustine’s Confessions

Introduction

LIKE A COLOSSUS BESTRIDING TWO WORLDS, Augustine stands as the last patristic and the first medieval father of Western Christianity. He gathered together and conserved all the main motifs of Latin Christianity from Tertullian to Ambrose; he appropriated the heritage of Nicene orthodoxy; he was a Chalcedonian before Chalcedon — and he drew all this into an unsystematic synthesis which is still our best mirror of the heart and mind of the Christian community in the Roman Empire. More than this, he freely received and deliberately reconsecrated the religious philosophy of the Greco-Roman world to a new apologetic use in maintaining the intelligibility of the Christian proclamation. Yet, even in his role as summator of tradition, he was no mere eclectic. The center of his “system” is in the Holy Scriptures, as they ordered and moved his heart and mind. It was in Scripture that, first and last, Augustine found the focus of his religious authority.

At the same time, it was this essentially conservative genius who recast the patristic tradition into the new pattern by which European Christianity would be largely shaped and who, with relatively little interest in historical detail, wrought out the first comprehensive “philosophy of history.” Augustine regarded himself as much less an innovator than a summator. He was less a reformer of the Church than the defender of the Church’s faith. His own self-chosen project was to save Christianity from the disruption of heresy and the calumnies of the pagans, and, above everything else, to renew and exalt the faithful hearing of the gospel of man’s utter need and God’s abundant grace. But the unforeseen result of this enterprise was to furnish the motifs of the Church’s piety and doctrine for the next thousand years and more. Wherever one touches the Middle Ages, he finds the marks of Augustine’s influence, powerful and pervasive — even Aquinas is more of an Augustinian at heart than a “proper” Aristotelian. In the Protestant Reformation, the evangelical elements in Augustine’s thought were appealed to in condemnation of the corruptions of popular Catholicism — yet even those corruptions had a certain right of appeal to some of the non-evangelical aspects of Augustine’s thought and life. And, still today, in the important theological revival of our own time, the influence of Augustine is obviously one of the most potent and productive impulses at work.

A succinct characterization of Augustine is impossible, not only because his thought is so extraordinarily complex and his expository method so incurably digressive, but also because throughout his entire career there were lively tensions and massive prejudices in his heart and head. His doctrine of God holds the Plotinian notions of divine unity and remotion in tension with the Biblical emphasis upon the sovereign God’s active involvement in creation and redemption. For all his devotion to Jesus Christ, this theology was never adequately Christocentric, and this reflects itself in many ways in his practical conception of the Christian life. He did not invent the doctrines of original sin and seminal transmission of guilt but he did set them as cornerstones in his “system,” matching them with a doctrine of infant baptism which cancels, ex opere operato, birth sin and hereditary guilt. He never wearied of celebrating God’s abundant mercy and grace — but he was also fully persuaded that the vast majority of mankind are condemned to a wholly just and appalling damnation. He never denied the reality of human freedom and never allowed the excuse of human irresponsibility before God — but against all detractors of the primacy of God’s grace, he vigorously insisted on both double predestination and irresistible grace.

For all this the Catholic Church was fully justified in giving Augustine his aptest title, Doctor Gratiae. The central theme in all Augustine’s writings is the sovereign God of grace and the sovereign grace of God. Grace, for Augustine, is God’s freedom to act without any external necessity whatsoever — to act in love beyond human understanding or control; to act in creation, judgment, and redemption; to give his Son freely as Mediator and Redeemer; to endue the Church with the indwelling power and guidance of the Holy Spirit; to shape the destinies of all creation and the ends of the two human societies, the “city of earth” and the “city of God.” Grace is God’s unmerited love and favor, prevenient and occurrent. It touches man’s inmost heart and will. It guides and impels the pilgrimage of those called to be faithful. It draws and raises the soul to repentance, faith, and praise. It transforms the human will so that it is capable of doing good. It relieves man’s religious anxiety by forgiveness and the gift of hope. It establishes the ground of Christian humility by abolishing the ground of human pride. God’s grace became incarnate in Jesus Christ, and it remains immanent in the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Augustine had no system — but he did have a stable and coherent Christian outlook. Moreover, he had an unwearied, ardent concern: man’s salvation from his hopeless plight, through the gracious action of God’s redeeming love. To understand and interpret this was his one endeavor, and to this task he devoted his entire genius.

He was, of course, by conscious intent and profession, a Christian theologian, a pastor and teacher in the Christian community. And yet it has come about that his contributions to the larger heritage of Western civilization are hardly less important than his services to the Christian Church. He was far and away the best — if not the very first — psychologist in the ancient world. His observations and descriptions of human motives and emotions, his depth analyses of will and thought in their interaction, and his exploration of the inner nature of the human self — these have established one of the main traditions in European conceptions of human nature, even down to our own time. Augustine is an essential source for both contemporary depth psychology and existentialist philosophy. His view of the shape and process of human history has been more influential than any other single source in the development of the Western tradition which regards political order as inextricably involved in moral order. His conception of a societas as a community identified and held together by its loyalties and love has become an integral part of the general tradition of Christian social teaching and the Christian vision of “Christendom.” His metaphysical explorations of the problems of being, the character of evil, the relation of faith and knowledge, of will and reason, of time and eternity, of creation and cosmic order, have not ceased to animate and enrich various philosophic reflections throughout the succeeding centuries. At the same time the hallmark of the Augustinian philosophy is its insistent demand that reflective thought issue in practical consequence; no contemplation of the end of life suffices unless it discovers the means by which men are brought to their proper goals. In sum, Augustine is one of the very few men who simply cannot be ignored or depreciated in any estimate of Western civilization without serious distortion and impoverishment of one’s historical and religious understanding.

In the space of some forty-four years, from his conversion in Milan (A.D. 386) to his death in Hippo Regius (A.D. 430), Augustine wrote — mostly at dictation — a vast sprawling library of books, sermons, and letters, the remains of which (in the Benedictine edition of St. Maur) fill fourteen volumes as they are reprinted in Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina (Vols. 32-45). In his old age, Augustine reviewed his authorship (in the Retractations) and has left us a critical review of ninety-three of his works he judged most important. Even a cursory glance at them shows how enormous was his range of interest. Yet almost everything he wrote was in response to a specific problem or an actual crisis in the immediate situation. One may mark off significant developments in his thought over this two-score years, but one can hardly miss the fundamental consistency in his entire life’s work. He was never interested in writing a systematic Summa Theologica, and would have been incapable of producing a balanced digest of his multifaceted teaching. Thus, if he is to be read wisely, he must be read widely — and always in context, with due attention to the specific aim in view in each particular treatise.

For the general reader who wishes to approach Augustine as directly as possible, however, it is a useful and fortunate thing that at the very beginning of his Christian ministry and then again at the very climax of it, Augustine set himself to focus his experience and thought into what were, for him, summings up. The result of the first effort is the Confessions, which is his most familiar and widely read work. The second is in the Enchiridion, written more than twenty years later. In the Confessions, he stands on the threshold of his career in the Church. In the Enchiridion, he stands forth as triumphant champion of orthodox Christianity. In these two works — the nearest equivalent to summation in the whole of the Augustinian corpus — we can find all his essential themes and can sample the characteristic flavor of his thought.

Augustine was baptized by Ambrose at Milan during Eastertide, A.D. 387. A short time later his mother, Monica, died at Ostia on the journey back to Africa. A year later, Augustine was back in Roman Africa living in a monastery at Tagaste, his native town. In 391, he was ordained presbyter in the church of Hippo Regius (a small coastal town nearby). Here in 395 — with grave misgivings on his own part (cf. Sermon CCCLV, 2) and in actual violation of the eighth canon of Nicea (cf. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, II, 671, and IV, 1167) — he was consecrated assistant bishop to the aged Valerius, whom he succeeded the following year. Shortly after he entered into his episcopal duties he began his Confessions, completing them probably in 398 (cf. De Labriolle, I, vi (see Bibliography), and di Capua, Miscellanea Agostiniana, II, 678).

Augustine had a complex motive for undertaking such a self- analysis.[1] His pilgrimage of grace had led him to a most unexpected outcome. Now he felt a compelling need to retrace the crucial turnings of the way by which he had come. And since he was sure that it was God’s grace that had been his prime mover on that way, it was a spontaneous expression of his heart that cast his self-recollection into the form of a sustained prayer to God.

The Confessions are not Augustine’s autobiography. They are, instead, a deliberate effort, in the permissive atmosphere of God’s felt presence, to recall those crucial episodes and events in which he can now see and celebrate the mysterious actions of God’s prevenient and provident grace. Thus he follows the windings of his memory as it re-presents the upheavals of his youth and the stages of his disorderly quest for wisdom. He omits very much indeed. Yet he builds his successive climaxes so skillfully that the denouement in Book VIII is a vivid and believable convergence of influences, reconstructed and “placed” with consummate dramatic skill. We see how Cicero’s Hortensius first awakened his thirst for wisdom, how the Manicheans deluded him with their promise of true wisdom, and how the Academics upset his confidence in certain knowledge — how they loosed him from the dogmatism of the Manicheans only to confront him with the opposite threat that all knowledge is uncertain. He shows us (Bk. V, Ch. X, 19) that almost the sole cause of his intellectual perplexity in religion was his stubborn, materialistic prejudice that if God existed he had to exist in a body, and thus had to have extension, shape, and finite relation. He remembers how the “Platonists” rescued him from this “materialism” and taught him how to think of spiritual and immaterial reality — and so to become able to conceive of God in non-dualistic categories. We can follow him in his extraordinarily candid and plain report of his Plotinian ecstasy, and his momentary communion with the One (Book VII). The “Platonists” liberated him from error, but they could not loose him from the fetters of incontinence. Thus, with a divided will, he continues to seek a stable peace in the Christian faith while he stubbornly clings to his pride and appetence.

In Book VIII, Augustine piles up a series of remembered incidents that inflamed his desire to imitate those who already seemed to have gained what he had so long been seeking. First of all, there had been Ambrose, who embodied for Augustine the dignity of Christian learning and the majesty of the authority of the Christian Scriptures. Then Simplicianus tells him the moving story of Victorinus (a more famous scholar than Augustine ever hoped to be), who finally came to the baptismal font in Milan as humbly as any other catechumen. Then, from Ponticianus he hears the story of Antony and about the increasing influence of the monastic calling. The story that stirs him most, perhaps, relates the dramatic conversion of the two “special agents of the imperial police” in the garden at Treves — two unlikely prospects snatched abruptly from their worldly ways to the monastic life.

He makes it plain that these examples forced his own feelings to an intolerable tension. His intellectual perplexities had become resolved; the virtue of continence had been consciously preferred; there was a strong desire for the storms of his breast to be calmed; he longed to imitate these men who had done what he could not and who were enjoying the peace he longed for.

But the old habits were still strong and he could not muster a full act of the whole will to strike them down. Then comes the scene in the Milanese garden which is an interesting parallel to Ponticianus’ story about the garden at Treves. The long struggle is recapitulated in a brief moment; his will struggles against and within itself. The trivial distraction of a child’s voice, chanting, “Tolle, lege,” precipitates the resolution of the conflict. There is a radical shift in mood and will, he turns eagerly to the chance text in Rom. 13:13 — and a new spirit rises in his heart.

After this radical change, there was only one more past event that had to be relived before his personal history could be seen in its right perspective. This was the death of his mother and the severance of his strongest earthly tie. Book IX tells us this story. The climactic moment in it is, of course, the vision at Ostia where mother and son are uplifted in an ecstasy that parallels — but also differs significantly from — the Plotinian vision of Book VII. After this, the mother dies and the son who had loved her almost too much goes on alone, now upheld and led by a greater and a wiser love.

We can observe two separate stages in Augustine’s “conversion.” The first was the dramatic striking off of the slavery of incontinence and pride which had so long held him from decisive commitment to the Christian faith. The second was the development of an adequate understanding of the Christian faith itself and his baptismal confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The former was achieved in the Milanese garden. The latter came more slowly and had no “dramatic moment.” The dialogues that Augustine wrote at Cassiciacum the year following his conversion show few substantial signs of a theological understanding, decisively or distinctively Christian. But by the time of his ordination to the presbyterate we can see the basic lines of a comprehensive and orthodox theology firmly laid out. Augustine neglects to tell us (in 398) what had happened in his thought between 385 and 391. He had other questions, more interesting to him, with which to wrestle.

One does not read far in the Confessions before he recognizes that the term “confess” has a double range of meaning. On the one hand, it obviously refers to the free acknowledgment, before God, of the truth one knows about oneself — and this obviously meant, for Augustine, the “confession of sins.” But, at the same time, and more importantly, confiteri means to acknowledge, to God, the truth one knows about God. To confess, then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.

Thus the Confessions are by no means complete when the personal history is concluded at the end of Book IX. There are two more closely related problems to be explored: First, how does the finite self find the infinite God (or, how is it found of him?)? And, secondly, how may we interpret God’s action in producing this created world in which such personal histories and revelations do occur? Book X, therefore, is an exploration of man’s way to God, a way which begins in sense experience but swiftly passes beyond it, through and beyond the awesome mystery of memory, to the ineffable encounter between God and the soul in man’s inmost subject-self. But such a journey is not complete until the process is reversed and man has looked as deeply as may be into the mystery of creation, on which all our history and experience depend. In Book XI, therefore, we discover why time is such a problem and how “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is the basic formula of a massive Christian metaphysical world view. In Books XII and XIII, Augustine elaborates, in loving patience and with considerable allegorical license, the mysteries of creation — exegeting the first chapter of Genesis, verse by verse, until he is able to relate the whole round of creation to the point where we can view the drama of God’s enterprise in human history on the vast stage of the cosmos itself. The Creator is the Redeemer! Man’s end and the beginning meet at a single point!

The Enchiridion is a briefer treatise on the grace of God and represents Augustine’s fully matured theological perspective — after the magnificent achievements of the De Trinitate and the greater part of the De civitate Dei, and after the tremendous turmoil of the Pelagian controversy in which the doctrine of grace was the exact epicenter. Sometime in 421, Augustine received a request from one Laurentius, a Christian layman who was the brother of the tribune Dulcitius (for whom Augustine wrote the De octo dulcitii quaestionibus in 423-425). This Laurentius wanted a handbook (enchiridion) that would sum up the essential Christian teaching in the briefest possible form. Augustine dryly comments that the shortest complete summary of the Christian faith is that God is to be served by man in faith, hope, and love. Then, acknowledging that this answer might indeed be too brief, he proceeds to expand it in an essay in which he tries unsuccessfully to subdue his natural digressive manner by imposing on it a patently artificial schematism. Despite its awkward form, however, the Enchiridion is one of the most important of all of Augustine’s writings, for it is a conscious effort of the theological magistrate of the Western Church to stand on final ground of testimony to the Christian truth.

For his framework, Augustine chooses the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. The treatise begins, naturally enough, with a discussion of God’s work in creation. Augustine makes a firm distinction between the comparatively unimportant knowledge of nature and the supremely important acknowledgment of the Creator of nature. But creation lies under the shadow of sin and evil and Augustine reviews his famous (and borrowed!) doctrine of the privative character of evil. From this he digresses into an extended comment on error and lying as special instances of evil. He then returns to the hopeless case of fallen man, to which God’s wholly unmerited grace has responded in the incarnation of the Mediator and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. The questions about the appropriation of God’s grace lead naturally to a discussion of baptism and justification, and beyond these, to the Holy Spirit and the Church. Augustine then sets forth the benefits of redeeming grace and weighs the balance between faith and good works in the forgiven sinner. But redemption looks forward toward resurrection, and Augustine feels he must devote a good deal of energy and subtle speculation to the questions about the manner and mode of the life everlasting. From this he moves on to the problem of the destiny of the wicked and the mystery of predestination. Nor does he shrink from these grim topics; indeed, he actually expands some of his most rigid ideas of God’s ruthless justice toward the damned. Having thus treated the Christian faith and Christian hope, he turns in a too-brief concluding section to the virtue of Christian love as the heart of the Christian life. This, then, is the “handbook” on faith, hope, and love which he hopes Laurence will put to use and not leave as “baggage on his bookshelf.”

Taken together, the Confessions and the Enchiridion give us two very important vantage points from which to view the Augustinian perspective as a whole, since they represent both his early and his mature formulation. From them, we can gain a competent — though by no means complete — introduction to the heart and mind of this great Christian saint and sage. There are important differences between the two works, and these ought to be noted by the careful reader. But all the main themes of Augustinian Christianity appear in them, and through them we can penetrate to its inner dynamic core.

There is no need to justify a new English translation of these books, even though many good ones already exist. Every translation is, at best, only an approximation — and an interpretation too. There is small hope for a translation to end all translations. Augustine’s Latin is, for the most part, comparatively easy to read. One feels directly the force of his constant wordplay, the artful balancing of his clauses, his laconic use of parataxis, and his deliberate involutions of thought and word order. He was always a Latin rhetor; artifice of style had come to be second nature with him — even though the Latin scriptures were powerful modifiers of his classical literary patterns. But it is a very tricky business to convey such a Latin style into anything like modern English without considerable violence one way or the other. A literal rendering of the text is simply not readable English. And this falsifies the text in another way, for Augustine’s Latin is eminently readable! On the other side, when one resorts to the unavoidable paraphrase there is always the open question as to the point beyond which the thought itself is being recast. It has been my aim and hope that these translations will give the reader an accurate medium of contact with Augustine’s temper and mode of argumentation. There has been no thought of trying to contrive an English equivalent for his style. If Augustine’s ideas come through this translation with positive force and clarity, there can be no serious reproach if it is neither as eloquent nor as elegant as Augustine in his own language. In any case, those who will compare this translation with the others will get at least a faint notion of how complex and truly brilliant the original is!

The sensitive reader soon recognizes that Augustine will not willingly be inspected from a distance or by a neutral observer. In all his writings there is a strong concern and moving power to involve his reader in his own process of inquiry and perplexity. There is a manifest eagerness to have him share in his own flashes of insight and his sudden glimpses of God’s glory. Augustine’s style is deeply personal; it is therefore idiomatic, and often colloquial. Even in his knottiest arguments, or in the labyrinthine mazes of his allegorizing (e.g., Confessions, Bk. XIII, or Enchiridion, XVIII), he seeks to maintain contact with his reader in genuine respect and openness. He is never content to seek and find the truth in solitude. He must enlist his fellows in seeing and applying the truth as given. He is never the blind fideist; even in the face of mystery, there is a constant reliance on the limited but real powers of human reason, and a constant striving for clarity and intelligibility. In this sense, he was a consistent follower of his own principle of “Christian Socratism,” developed in the De Magistro and the De catechezandis rudibus.

Even the best of Augustine’s writing bears the marks of his own time and there is much in these old books that is of little interest to any but the specialist. There are many stones of stumbling in them for the modern secularist — and even for the modern Christian! Despite all this, it is impossible to read him with any attention at all without recognizing how his genius and his piety burst through the limitations of his times and his language — and even his English translations! He grips our hearts and minds and enlists us in the great enterprise to which his whole life was devoted: the search for and the celebration of God’s grace and glory by which his faithful children are sustained and guided in their pilgrimage toward the true Light of us all.

The most useful critical text of the Confessions is that of Pierre de Labriolle (fifth edition, Paris, 1950). I have collated this with the other major critical editions: Martin Skutella, S. Aureli Augustini Confessionum Libri Tredecim (Leipzig, 1934) — itself a recension of the Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum XXXIII text of Pius Knoll (Vienna, 1896) — and the second edition of John Gibb and William Montgomery (Cambridge, 1927).

There are two good critical texts of the Enchiridion and I have collated them: Otto Scheel, Augustins Enchiridion (zweite Auflage, Tubingen, 1930), and Jean Riviere, Enchiridion in the Bibliotheque Augustinienne, Oeuvres de S. Augustin, premiere serie: Opuscules, IX: Exposes generaux de la foi (Paris, 1947).

It remains for me to express my appreciation to the General Editors of this Library for their constructive help; to Professor Hollis W. Huston, who read the entire manuscript and made many valuable suggestions; and to Professor William A. Irwin, who greatly aided with parts of the Enchiridion. These men share the credit for preventing many flaws, but naturally no responsibility for those remaining. Professors Raymond P. Morris, of the Yale Divinity School Library; Robert Beach, of the Union Theological Seminary Library; and Decherd Turner, of our Bridwell Library here at Southern Methodist University, were especially generous in their bibliographical assistance. Last, but not least, Mrs. Hollis W. Huston and my wife, between them, managed the difficult task of putting the results of this project into fair copy. To them all I am most grateful.

AUGUSTINE’S TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE CONFESSIONS

I. THE Retractations, II, 6 (A.D. 427)

1. My Confessions, in thirteen books, praise the righteous and good God as they speak either of my evil or good, and they are meant to excite men’s minds and affections toward him. At least as far as I am concerned, this is what they did for me when they were being written and they still do this when read. What some people think of them is their own affair [ipse viderint]; but I do know that they have given pleasure to many of my brethren and still do so. The first through the tenth books were written about myself; the other three about Holy Scripture, from what is written there, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,[2] even as far as the reference to the Sabbath rest.[3]

2. In Book IV, when I confessed my soul’s misery over the death of a friend and said that our soul had somehow been made one out of two souls, “But it may have been that I was afraid to die, lest he should then die wholly whom I had so greatly loved” (Ch. VI, 11) — this now seems to be more a trivial declamation than a serious confession, although this inept expression may be tempered somewhat by the “may have been” [forte] which I added. And in Book XIII what I said — “The firmament was made between the higher waters (and superior) and the lower (and inferior) waters” — was said without sufficient thought. In any case, the matter is very obscure.

This work begins thus: “Great art thou, O Lord.”

II. De Dono Perseverantiae, XX, 53 (A.D. 428)

Which of my shorter works has been more widely known or given greater pleasure than the [thirteen] books of my Confessions? And, although I published them long before the Pelagian heresy had even begun to be, it is plain that in them I said to my God, again and again, “Give what thou commandest and command what thou wilt.” When these words of mine were repeated in Pelagius’ presence at Rome by a certain brother of mine (an episcopal colleague), he could not bear them and contradicted him so excitedly that they nearly came to a quarrel. Now what, indeed, does God command, first and foremost, except that we believe in him? This faith, therefore, he himself gives; so that it is well said to him, “Give what thou commandest.” Moreover, in those same books, concerning my account of my conversion when God turned me to that faith which I was laying waste with a very wretched and wild verbal assault,[4] do you not remember how the narration shows that I was given as a gift to the faithful and daily tears of my mother, who had been promised that I should not perish? I certainly declared there that God by his grace turns men’s wills to the true faith when they are not only averse to it, but actually adverse. As for the other ways in which I sought God’s aid in my growth in perseverance, you either know or can review them as you wish (PL, 45, c. 1025).

III. Letter to Darius (A.D. 429)

Thus, my son, take the books of my Confessions and use them as a good man should — not superficially, but as a Christian in Christian charity. Here see me as I am and do not praise me for more than I am. Here believe nothing else about me than my own testimony. Here observe what I have been in myself and through myself. And if something in me pleases you, here praise Him with me — him whom I desire to be praised on my account and not myself. “For it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves.”[5] Indeed, we were ourselves quite lost; but he who made us, remade us [sed qui fecit, refecit]. As, then, you find me in these pages, pray for me that I shall not fail but that I may go on to be perfected. Pray for me, my son, pray for me! (Epist. CCXXXI, PL, 33, c. 1025).

Cheese Burger Lumalaganap!!!!

Bawat lugar…. Bawat Araw… Bawat kalsada… iisa lang ang Sigaw Nila!! Pa-Cheese Burger Ka naman!!!!

Ang Tanong ng Karamihan Sa dami dami ng burger sa mga fastfoodchains bkit chesse burger pa ng mcdo ang kanilang sinusumbat!!?

Ang Tanong Ulit bakit nga ba nauso yang Cheese burger na yan? sino ba nagpauso nyan!!?

Tignan nyo ang Pinagkaiba ng Cheese burger ng dalawang Magkaribal na Fastfoodchains!!:

McDo Cheese Burger:

Jollibee Cheese Burger:

o nakita nyo na ang ang Pagkakaiba? Pareho Masarap Pareho ding Mahal Maliit pa!! ganyan talga ang mga pinoy pauso sa damit, sa style ng buhok, sa mga accesories!! pati pa ba naman sa pagkain… nagpapauso kakaasar Di ba? baka pati ang pancit pausohin na nila o di kaya ang biko, palitaw, sapin-sapin, buko, puto, kutsinta, powedered milk, o di kaya binatog!! pero lahat masarap yan kakagutom!! hehe cge trabaho na ako!!! bye. Pa-cheese burger kaya ako!! sweldo na eh!! -chris

ANG PAN DE SAL, BOW!

 

Pan De Sal and Soaring Prices

Prices of pan de sal and other bread products are expected to rise in the middle of this month. But that’s understandable since… pawis ang puhunan ng mga panadero sa paggawa n’yan.

Top 5 Signs that Your Favorite Pan de sal and Other Bread Products Have Shrunk to an Alarming Size

5: Your usual 10-minute breakfast is reduced to 5 minutes.

4: “Brazo de Mercedes” is renamed by bakers and is now known as “daliri de Mercedes.”

3: During breakfast, you use the pan de sal as palaman to your fried eggs.

2: Your 7-year old daughter approaches you and boasts of a newly-learned stunt from her yaya: “Ang paglunok ng tatlong pirasong pan de sal — sabay-sabay!”

And the No.1 sign that your favorite pan de sal has shrunk to an alarming size…

1: When you go to the bakery and say, “Pabili nga po ng pan de sal,” the baker would reply, “Ilang tablets?”

Have a great weekend!

from the blog site of Professional Hecker