Fides et Ratio

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V7 The rich rules over the poor,

Dave Ramsey favorite quotes and it is abundantly true. If you have payments you are not free, you are indebted to someone else. The interest is a clear sign of that. Turned his life and millions of lives around.

Wisdom, wealth, moral instruction. Generosity. More money to be made. Feel trapped to credit cards companies, loans. Trust in the Lord operate from generosity instead scarcity.

Generous spirit, be useful to others, advancing life reaps a reward spiritual and material reward.

V 9 He who has a bountiful eye will be blessed,

Bountiful eye, generous. Good denotes desirable quality of being useful and advancing life, and eye reveals a person’s character and disposition.[1]

V 11 He who loves purity of heart,

Thinking of our words, intentional speaking with kindness and graciousness. Amazed at relationships by being kind and approachable. Opportunities astound me. Found a job because of a friend, met another man hoping to work with him. Liked my attitude. Truth in this verse.

Humble & fear of the Lord v4

In a very broad sense

V 15 Folly is bound up in the heart of a child,

I have been around children who have not had discipline and they are little tyrants.

Folly incurs the Lord’s curse (v14b deep pit, hell) eternal death. The loving father seeks to mitigate a greater suffering by use of a lighter one. (Eph 2:3)

English proverb Spare the rod and spoil the child derived in part from this verse

Bring hell upon ourselves by our own actions.

V16 16 Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth,

Jesus ministry among poor and outcast. Free the oppressed. Wealth relational wealth. Relationships deep. Intentionally went to poor and outcast. Tax collectors rich and still outcasts. The beauty and wisdom of Jesus.

[1] Bruce K. Waltke, The New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT): The Book of Proverbs Chapters 15-31(Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, MI 2005) 209

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3 Myths

Notion in the elite circles that family diversity is a mark of progress in society.

Emotional and Physical risks with family instability are much greater

Happiness red herring. Joyfulness interior realities manifest in exterior. Not poured on from outside. No one outside can make me happy. Unattainable goal on other person. Happiness personal responsibility.

Chronic problem, defect of people wanting to take responsibility of their own actions. Blame others for their problems. Untenable for marriage.

JPII definition, human person integrated life truly in communion with himself, God, and neighbors. Living that is capable of making true gift of self. Living outside this, can’t make a gift of self-unawareness of themselves.

Need to be proud of yourself. Everyone got a trophy, worried about self-esteem self-worth. Every kid knew this was lie no work involved. Need to be more courageous to help people integrated life and so be able to make a sincere gift of self.

Codependents versus serving other.

[1] Wilcox 37

[2] Wilcox 59

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  Marriages are not in a vacuum. Supported or undermined by a culture.

MTM how ridiculous the good marriages were treated. The educated knew it was a ridiculous institution and time to move forward. As a image, lived a reality for many people. Undermined them.

Same culture 2 people though challenging but truly beautiful. Make sure our own marriages resting on key foundational underpinnings. Demand the culture to tell truth of the marriage.

Hard to do this when in the midst of living it. Working on the particular not the aggregate.

People who undermine marriage do not have the same home life and responsibilities.

Ants versus termites

Doing the work, doing the undermining

Important place for women, who are past the heavy load of child rearing, raised, second stage career. A place in society to be more proactive. Make demands on the society for the people younger than us. They are doing the minutiae of raising the children doing the work in the particular.

Pricilla in the New Testament was able to care of the apostles needs from her bounty, standing and cash. Gravitas & freedom to help.

Need to defend marriages and not have them undermined by people who espouse family varieties.

Only a crazy person says this.  Unprovable.

Society imbued with a superstitious scientism. Say something and ipso facto its true. Only God can speak something into existence. For man it takes effort. Simply by proposing a family structure they make it into a reality.

We build through industry, hard work, love, positive attention, acts of forgiveness. Challenging. easier to stonewall, be critical, defensive, etc…

Only thing going for us because elites have been undermining marriage for a long time, they are finding out themselves that built own lives on a house of cards

Ex/ Jeff Bezos & wife built empires 25 yrs married, 20 yrs common goal marriage, should be looking forward to grandchildren, get a divorce, instead a girlfriend and who knows what the ex-wife is doing. The children now have split home for holidays, celebrations, etc…

 Bill & Melinda Gates built this empire together 25-30 yrs marriage divorce.

Elites ere living lies of marriage for so many years. Children suffer consequences.

Crash among elites, go back to living normal lives again. At tipping point, God willing.

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V2 The rich and the poor meet together;

Unity in the Lord our creator

V4 The reward for humility and fear of the Lord

Riches, honor, life reward

Rupa live streamed into a funeral grandfather, 1999 in Australia supported the newly arrived family. Humility of him. Riches, honor, life, impact on so many people. Beautiful testament and witness of his life. Great humility & greatness. Many people impacted. Timeless wisdom. Humility & fear of the Lord.

Riches broader than money and comfort.

V6 Train up a child in the way he should go,

Does this negate the free will of the child. A&E are a stark example of the best training and poor choices of the offspring

Possibility of redemption and return from wandering. Can seem hopeless. Remain hopeful and prayerful temptation to be discouraged.

As with the deposit of faith and reading of Sacred Scripture, one cannot pull out a text and hang all of ones weight on it. Rather it must harmonize with the rest of the Faith.

Word of comfort to those parents who faithfully raised their children in a Christian manner and now see their adult children making foolish choices. Parents prayers are very powerful before the throne of God. Ask others to pray for them, intercession f the saints. Then trust that God will answer your prayers in His good time and according to His good pleasure.

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4 Groups (culture) Masters Reject anti-marriage messaging from ruling class

Liberals who espouse family diversity for others are themselves a traditional model of family. Jeffersonian Award UVA 150K/4 yrs 80 % of the recipients mother/father live at same address[1]. Ivy schools survey 23/25 intact homes Yale class.

What do these 4 groups predominantly share. Note all put an end more important than the lived means. Living towards an objective goal, over rides other things. We don’t live on the outlier, does not pertain to goal.

Every one goal delayed gratification. Not looking for titillation. Not marrying fulfils me. Not a romanticism. There is authentic romantic. Many true love stories. Love defined willing the good of the other.

All 4 of the groups strive goal, delayed gratification, seeking the good of spouse and children

Something joins them, commonality.

Not innate to human person. All persons can aspire to these 3 things regardless of where you come from

Directed to a common goal

Delayed gratification

Seek/ will the good of the other

All can aspire to this.

Life rightly ordered

Highschool diploma, finishing what you started as it were

No promiscuous sex

Married

Children after wedding

These things matter, advantage so high. Monumental catastrophe. Live in fallen world. Pious men seduced; literature give us examples.

In general, ordained by God.

[1] Wilcox 63

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Chapter 1 An overview of the current state of our unions, 2023. Reason needs ongoing social scientists looking at the landscape. Changes

Some good news, kids of divorce less likely to divorce, divorce rates have gone down. Divorce rate has gone down from high in 1980’s to about 40%. Not half!

Bad news young adults tend to stay single longer, live together or never (highest number about 1/3) marry. Like Mary Tyler Moore in the 1970’s when the satisfied happy single idea first was proposed. Declining fertility, declining economy, profound loneliness in the elderly. Japan is highlighted.

Psychology (micro) versus social science (macro, culture) And/ Both

Masters & Disasters Gottman’s research Love Lab Jordan Peterson (psychology) 90 % if divorce

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse- Disasters

Masters

2.Losts of positive attention 5:1 positive: negative remarks kind word, humble request for forgiveness, generally positive orientation

Culture- community join, cash flow, culture of family[1]

Same elites proposing marriage as a non-good were living long term marriages

Rules for thee not for me. Create other reality they can intentionally distain.

Elite themselves live in the house created.

Rise of anti-elite charge so easy to stay home. Not easy, made decisions but jealous of results. We did the good and have results of the good. Not supposed to have it.

The 4 groups will be mocked and the outcast. Self-fulling prophecy. Must have the otherness.

[1] Wilcox 20

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Similar to Proverbs, but large differences make it unlikely that Solomon had direct literary dependence on it.

Comparisons of Ameneope to Proverbs where it is similar

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,

17 Incline your ear, and hear the words of the wise,

22 Do not rob the poor, because he is poor,

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VIII. Divorce popularized in the 1970’s Mary Tyler Moore is exactly the propaganda show Wilcox suggests, my opinion. Ted & I finished watching the entire 7 episodes. Marriage is portrayed poorly, boringly, dead-end. Murray looks he pecked and bedraggled. His one excitement was his emotional affair. Lou gets divorced after 24 years of marriage because his wife wants to experience something which I never quite got the gist of, and she ends up remarried within a short time. Ted Baxter & Georgette don’t inspire anyone to the married life. But Mary, single, thin Mary she makes the day interesting and happy. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is propaganda for easy divorce and single life nicely wrapped up in comedy and big hair.

Few children in the show.

In writing Get Married, my aim is not to argue that everyone should put a ring on it. Not everyone can or should marry. Nor stay married. But for most of us, getting married and forging a strong family is the best way to build a prosperous, meaningful, and happy life- and a way that needs a lot more guidance and support from the culture and law than it is now garnering.[1]

Married people are happier and more prosperous than unmarried people.[2]

Lie any variation of family by calling a family. Have same words but reality not conveyed.

Bench markers

High school degree

Don’t live together before or premarital sex

Those two indicators

Have children after the vows

Statistically impossibility to live in poverty

Covid lifted the curtain of the great Oz. Ridiculous protests of campuses. Parents becoming savvy.

God calls a people a state in life that should be acted upon. Get about it. God gives graces to state in life. Don’t fritter away useless years.

[1] Wilcox xxiv

[2] Wilcox 15

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Brad Wilcox is Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families and Save Civilization (HarperCollins, 2024), Wilcox studies marital quality, marital stability, and the impact of strong and stable marriages upon men, women, and children. The author and editor of six books, Wilcox has written for scientific journals such as The American Sociological Review and The Journal of Marriage and Family, as well as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and National Review. A Connecticut native, he now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia with his wife and family.[1]

No death sentence if the proposed constructs are not met. Wilcox, a Catholic, lost his father at the age of 6 yrs and filled with rage and loss. His mother found other male role models to fill the void which allowed him to flourish in his adulthood.[2]

Caveat striking difference father died and father abandoned. Orphan not fatherless due to death. General man died, grieved introduce children to him and virtues of the man. Much harder of abandoned. Separation fundamentally different.

VII. Get Married critique of book publishing quality

Pages are rough and contrast between ink and paper not first rate. Glad to put the book down after reading it.

[1] https://ifstudies.org/brad-wilcox  accessed June 4, 2024

[2] Wilcox 75

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– Recall, the principal author is the Holy Spirit, set within the entirety of the Canon

TS of Proverbs 1:1-7

2 That men may know wisdom and instruction,

7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

Royal Kingdom: Purple (royalty) Narrative I & II Samuel, I Kings, I & II Chronicles 970-931 BC

Possibly derived from the school associated with the royal court. Throughout the years, editor or editors formed the collection. Proverbs in this form would have been particularly helpful during the postexilic period.[1]

III. Outline Recall overall structure of the Book

Another possibility from study of structural analysis, with this structure spousal imagery, marital fidelity, and the Nobel Woman.

Prologue: Solomon’s Discourses to His son (Prov 1-9) note strong connection to Epilogue

III. Words of the Wise 2 (Prov 24:23- 34)

VII. Words of Lemuel (Prov 31:1-9)[2]

Epilogue: The Song of the Noble Woman (Prover 31:10-31) cf Ruth, Bride (Soul) in Song of Solomon

Good to take context into consideration

[1] Roland E. Murphy, O. Carm, Wisdom Literature Vol. XIII (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids MI 1981) 53

[2] John Bergsma & Brant Pitre A Catholic Introduction to the Bible, The Old Testament (Ignatius: San Francisco 2018) 598

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