Mondays are reserved for letters from students and other young people – some scholars, some not -- and I say again, since people keep asking me, that the letters are all real.

Question:

Thomas Aquinas remarks that devotion is spurred mainly by considering God's goodness.  Directly, such consideration causes joy because the remembrance of God is so delightful, but it also causes sorrow because we do not yet enjoy God fully.

In short, no.  It hopes for self-government; it does not require it.

By giving this answer I’m siding with the classical tradition against some of the early modern revisionists.

My post "What Conscience Isn't" has been widely reprinted under the title "Is Conscience an Illusion?"  To read it, click here.

You may have noticed that I keep coming back to certain puzzles, like a dog chewing a bone.

Sometimes people argue that the Framers couldn’t possibly have meant what they said when they guaranteed the free exercise of religion with no exceptions.  The argument runs like this:

The twentieth century taught some of us that totalitarianism is evil.  What it taught some totalitarians is that their methods had to change.  Do people resist the compulsory destruction of their cherished institutions?  Very well, then compulsion must be made to look like liberty.

Mondays are reserved for letters from students.  This one is matriculating at Santa Clara University.

Question: