Query:

In considering the relative gravity of sins, Aquinas considers pride in itself as graver than murder, since pride, in its proper meaning, is by its very nature a turning away from God.  Murder in its nature constitutes an unjust taking of life, and turning away from God is its consequence, not its essence.

 

Query:

Are Christians idealists, in the sense in which a Marxist would use the term?  You know I am at university in a Marxist country.

 

Reply:

I think you may be asking any of four different things.

 

Rather than an extended reflection on a single theme, this is a series of short thoughts that have been knocking around in my mind.

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Query:

Is Christian charity compatible with competition, so that someone could say “I want to love God for His own sake more than anyone else”?

 

 

Every schoolchild used to know that the four cardinal virtues are prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude.  These aren’t the only virtues, or even the only important ones, but rather those on which all the ordinary human virtues depend, for each of them can be viewed as one of the “parts” or aspects of one of the Four Big Ones.