Week 4, semester 2

This week we got a whole bunch of work piled on us:

Latin- i stem nouns of the third declension (yipee!) and also we translated the first few verses of John 1, which was cool.

Philsophy- we finished up with Aquinas. Talked about man's last end, love and hate, happiness and how to get it (how we can't get it from wealth, honours, fame, glory, power, bodily good, pleasure, or a good of the soul, or any created good, but only from seeing God, the "beatific vision". Then we talked about virtue and what part the soul has in being virtuous, in correcting sin and about the 7 deadly sins and 7 cardinal virtues.

Art- We started talked about the Northern Renaissance artists, mostly Jan van Eyck. We read from an essay by Erwin Panofsky, an art scholar who wrote about the 'levels of iconography', as in how to 'interpret' a work of art. It was pretty interesting, the focus is on not looking for the meaning and exact people shown in a painting right off the bat, but just to look at what you see without any guessing and to see what you can learn just by observing. The thing with him is that after he does all this observation of what the painting actually shows, he extrapolates and the 'last level of iconography' is "intrinsic meaning", where you can learn the philosophy of the artist himself. But we wondered if an artist's deepest goal is always just to portray his own outlook on life. Maybe the artist actually wanted to portray a universal truth, something about God. I think we often do look at a painting in hopes of figuring out exactly how the artist's mind worked, but that's not necessarily what the artist wanted, or what is the best thing to do.

Science with Dr. Patrick- we got our papers assigned, we have to write a dialogue where the pros and cons of evolution are discussed. Also, we each will do a ten minute presentation on something that relates to the theory of evolution- mine will be on DNA. So I started reading the parts of our textbook relating to that. Then we talked about how Darwinism has become an orthodoxy, a dogma, and how it eliminates teleology. An american Jewish bioethicist names Kass makes 4 points when talking about teleology and why we can't do without it:
-organisms are organized wholes (Dr. Patrick says the most important ideal for dealing with end and beginning of life issues is central organization)
-our parts have specific functions
-we behave on purpose
-we heal
So inductive reasoning has done very well but we shouldn't have thrown out teleology completely, we just need more sophisticated versions of it. (I'm not sure what he would suggest, exactly.) Within what God has created there is teleology evident everywhere. Even "Struggling for survival" is a teleological metaphor! And the fact that our world built on delayed gratification- that's teleological too.

Book Club- the chapter of the week was on Eros. It wasn't that earth-shattering, I liked the chapter on friendship much better, but that could be because I'm not madly in love with anyone. haha.

Music- the Classical era and Haydn, who we compared with Mozart although we'll talk more about Mozart later. Prof. Warren played us a few piano sonatas in the living room (it was fun- he's so good!) and we talked about sonata form. Then we listened to a bunch of Haydn's symphonies.

Literature- we had read the last chapter of Paradise Lost- so we talked about that. Some people have criticized the last two books, but I really liked them and thought they were well-written. Here are the very last lines of the epic:
In either hand the hastning Angel caught
Our lingring Parents, and to th' Eastern Gate
Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast
To the subjected Plaine; then disappeer'd.
They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:
Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
Through Eden took thir solitarie way.

We also started discussing Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis. I loved this book, I'm excited to talk more about it. There's always a lot of discussion around gender issues in our Lit. class, since Milton makes some pretty blood-curdling comments and there are a lot of things in Lewis that relate to it as well. I'm getting kind of tired of the discussion, frankly, because we never seem to get anywhere or talk about anything that is going to change my life.

Scriptures- we talked about Thomas Aquinas' Compendium again. Mostly stuff about original justice, the fall, and original sin and how Adam's sin affects us all, but his repentance could not. Then we talked about reasons for the incarnation:
- To Recall man to spiritual things from material things.
-To show the dignity of human nature- we're not just spiritual beings 'trapped in a physical world'. Christ didn't become an angel, he became a man and was lifted up above the angels.
-God showed his love so that men might serve him not out of fear but out of charity. The pagan relationship with the gods was one of fear.
-There is a possibility of the intellect and the spirit having unity. The incarnation is the completion of what God began.
-Man can be united to the First Cause . We have hope of that restored union, of Him completing his purposes in us.

Then we had chapel, and I went to the MET on Thursday night where we heard a presentation by people from Wycliffe Bible Translators- it was really well done and interesting, although a little long after sitting in class all day. They have a program where you can go to a village for two years that has no written language, learn the language, and help them develop 40 bible stories that tell the Gospel for them to have in their oral culture. This seems really interesting, although I wonder whether there might end up being problems with the stories changing and becoming untrue if they were never written down, but I guess these oral cultures are used to it...

In Trivium we've been learning about essay writing, I think it'll be really useful.

Yesterday we went to the Metelski's for dinner, it was really nice. Today after Church we went to Winterlude and looked at all the ice sculptures that have been entered into the competition- they are amazing! We also listened to the 'junkyard symphony'- some guys who put on a little show where they drum on trash cans and such (kind of STOMP style) whilst doing funny circus stunts (jugling and balancing and such) and bringing kids up to be a part of it and do silly things. It was really cute. The weather was gorgeous- actually too warm because the ice sculptures were starting to melt. Some heads and arms were falling off!

Okay I'm going to eat.

peace out.
S