Thomas Aquinas: "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible." When I first read it, it seemed to belie a kind of resignation on his part, i.e., an acknowledgment that his arguments are insufficient reason for belief in God.
How should you analyze it?
I don't believe Aquinas ever actually said that.
What Aquinas did say is that although rational arguments may not be sufficient to bring about faith, they can remove obstacles to faith:
Thomas Aquinas said:
The reasons which are brought forward in support of the authority of faith, are not demonstrations which can bring intellectual vision to the human intellect, wherefore they do not cease to be unseen.
But they remove obstacles to faith, by showing that what faith proposes is not impossible; wherefore such reasons do not diminish the merit or the measure of faith.
That's from
S.T. II ii, q. 2, a. 10.
1. What do you think of the materialistic doctrine that holds that there is nothing 'spiritual' or non-physical?
I think it's reasonable. However, there are various forms of materialism, according to what kinds of entities they deny. One form of materialism may mean the denial of any non-physical substances such as ghosts or Cartesian minds. Another may mean the denial of any non-physical
properties, which is going further. And another may mean the denial of things such as holes. After all, a hole is not a material object - it's a gap in a material object - so a person who denies the existence of anything that isn't a material object must deny the existence of holes. There are, of course, ways to get around this sort of thing. (E.g. talk of "holes" is really verbal shorthand for talk of instantiations of the property of "being perforated", or something along those lines.)
2. Is that doctrine called materialism, or am I confuzzling myself?
Yes. It might also be called "physicalism". But that is sometimes used to mean the claim that a person is identical with her body, which is not the same thing.
It's interesting that most people confuse logic with reason...
Belief is opposite to logic, not nessessarily to reason.
No, obviously it's possible to believe things that are consistent with logic.
The difference is that logic tells you that all theories must have facts to back them up (facts go FIRST), while reason can do just the opposite - find facts for the theory instead (theory goes FIRST).
Logic doesn't tell you anything of the kind. Logic is simply a tool for deducing one set of propositions from another.
In the case of religion (as a "theory" of God), logic wouldn't help you much - God's ways are hidden in this world.
That's an assertion; and it doesn't show why logic won't help you.
civ2, your definition of logic bears little resemblance to
all the dictionary definitions. They even list reason as synonyms with logic!
I think that both logic
and reason can be used to determine the validity of beliefs.
Validity isn't a property of beliefs - it's a property of arguments.
Now beliefs may have various properties, including (but not limited to) truth, probability, and rationality. I'd say that reason and logic (which is a tool of reason) may be used to assess all of these properties, to varying degrees.
Who was the first person to list Baptism, Chrismation/Confirmation, Communion, Marriage, Holy Orders, Confession, and Unction as the seven sacraments?
Otto of Bamberg and Hugh of St Victor are often identified as the first to list the seven sacraments. However, I'm not completely sure what their lists were. Peter Lombard listed the seven sacraments very soon afterwards, and since his work rapidly became the most-read and most-commented on Christian writing in the west, his understanding of the sacraments became standard.