Can Catholics believe in astrology?

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  • Опубліковано 14 гру 2024

КОМЕНТАРІ • 41

  • @mikesarno7973
    @mikesarno7973 Рік тому +1

    Father Little, I pray for you by name every night. Praying for you today and wishing you a blessed feast day!

  • @TCM1231
    @TCM1231 Рік тому +10

    Thank you for all the great work gentlemen

  • @therese_paula
    @therese_paula Рік тому +4

    Thank you, Fr. Little! I look forward to your next vid in this channel.

  • @john-acellera
    @john-acellera Рік тому +4

    thank you so much Fr. for clarifying this big issue...God bless!

  • @zml1982
    @zml1982 Рік тому +3

    The example given by Fr. Ambrosius in what concerns wether the position of Mars being a signal of a shorter life is the way most astrologers put it today. Not properly a spiritual thing. The question is: Is it a sin to make a multivariated correlation between random factors and try to find patterns, even if its failed? I remember reading a 1910 article about spiritualism and astrology in the Catholic Encyclopedia (when it was available). It was clearly told that the biggest problem was the use of it to justify moral nonchalance by relating criminal motivations to external forces. That was the real problem and it often happened in the XIX century.

    • @Ark_bleu
      @Ark_bleu 7 місяців тому +1

      Glad you wrote this. It does seem to me that there are multiple lines of inquiry when it comes to investigating astrology fully, but it’s typically only dealt with in terms of physics or the demonic. I still don’t think that it’s been observed broadly on its own terms, whether people do in fact have different personalities. Still I can see how this finding would conflict with the churches sense of free will.
      BUT that being said-this being a channel devoted to Thomism-the prevailing theory of evil here is one of privation; Evil isn’t a ‘thing’ in itself but is characterized by what it lacks*. When it comes to the occult, my impression has long been that it has no power of its own. Rather when you pursue something that makes no sense, well it corrupts you. In the words of Nietzsche (of all people lol), “When you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss looks back.”
      Actor Sir Christopher Lee (R.I.P. ) was once asked about the occult and he sternly warned against it as a route to madness. An Anglo-Catholic himself and heavy metal enthusiast.
      The clip is somewhere on UA-cam.

  • @Insightful_Inquiries
    @Insightful_Inquiries Рік тому +10

    Even if constellations were affecting things on earth wouldn’t it then just be another mechanism of creation by which God operates?
    Love this channel thank you!
    +---------+---------+
    🌹“Pray the Rosary every day, in order to obtain Peace in the world..”
    ~Our Lady’s Words at Fatima
    May 13th, 1917🌹
    -As always,
    Repent & believe in the Gospel!
    God Bless!
    +---------+---------+

  • @claranatania3a230
    @claranatania3a230 Рік тому +1

    Thankyu father

  • @Ark_bleu
    @Ark_bleu 7 місяців тому +1

    4:43 “In short stay away from astrology. It can only do you harm and cannot do you any good. “
    Even if you’re on the fence and can’t wrap your head around Astrology being forbidden, one thing is clear: waiting around to find out your “destiny” --that is time you can never get back. (Speaking only from experience) This error goes beyond just astrology imo and seems to be a chief difference between Christianity and other world views.

  • @aiantenor9080
    @aiantenor9080 Рік тому

    Thank you Fr Little, I look forward to these vids

  • @IdiotaDaniel
    @IdiotaDaniel Рік тому

    Very much enjoyed this and find it useful in explaining to others in the Church and outside. Looking forward to more and especially to Advent. 😊

  • @My56David
    @My56David Рік тому +1

    Thank you!

  • @bryansmith7758
    @bryansmith7758 Рік тому +7

    Thomas aquinas argued that the planets(heavenly bodies) do exert influence on us, but an astrology that is fatalistic or denies free will is forbidden. look up question 115 article 3.
    It must be observed, however, that indirectly and accidentally, the impressions of heavenly bodies can reach the intellect and will, forasmuch, namely, as both intellect and will receive something from the inferior powers which are affixed to corporeal organs. But in this the intellect and will are differently situated. For the intellect, of necessity, receives from the inferior apprehensive powers: wherefore if the imaginative, cogitative, or memorative powers be disturbed, the action of the intellect is, of necessity, disturbed also. The will, on the contrary, does not, of necessity, follow the inclination of the inferior appetite; for although the passions in the irascible and concupiscible have a certain force in inclining the will; nevertheless the will retains the power of following the passions or repressing them. Therefore the impressions of the heavenly bodies, by virtue of which the inferior powers can be changed, has less influence on the will, which is the proximate cause of human actions, than on the intellect...
    ... The spiritual substances, that move the heavenly bodies, do indeed act on corporeal things by means of the heavenly bodies; but they act immediately on the human intellect by enlightening it. On the other hand, they cannot compel the will...
    ...The majority of men follow their passions, which are movements of the sensitive appetite, in which movements of the heavenly bodies can cooperate: but few are wise enough to resist these passions. Consequently astrologers are able to foretell the truth in the majority of cases, especially in a general way. But not in particular cases; for nothing prevents man resisting his passions by his free-will. Wherefore the astrologers themselves are wont to say that "the wise man is stronger than the stars" [Ptolemy, Centiloquium, prop. 5], forasmuch as, to wit, he conquers his passions.

  • @the_artisan
    @the_artisan Рік тому +29

    You make it sound like St Albert the Great never wrote stuff like this: "The Ram (Aries) or the Lion (Leo) or the Archer (Sagittarius) carved [on stones] by reason of Fire and the Eastern triplicity , indicate that stones have a property against fevers and such infirmities as dropsy, paralysis, and the like. And since heat has a beneficial effect, these are said to make their wearers skilful and clever, and to raise them to positions of honour in the world; the Lion especially [has this effect]." I feel like videos like this don't really do justice to how people like St Albert and even St Thomas understood the cosmos. We live in a denuded rationalistic age, and unfortunately that has even affected how the Catholic Church views topics like this. I understand the need for caution, as divination is clearly forbidden by the Church. I just think this video skates over the real issue which is how the cosmos could embody and reveal the symbolic structure which is the language of God, the Logos, within its forms and patterns.

    • @eliakim5647
      @eliakim5647 Рік тому +13

      Right, unfortunately this was a low effort video on the subject, without references to any of the primary sources. Albertus Magnus was fully aware of the difference between the science of astronomy and the science of astrology. He describes astronomy in chapter one of the Speculum Astronomiae and astrology in chapter three, here is a short excerpt:
      "For if God, most high in his supreme wisdom, has ordered this world in such a manner, that He who is the living God and the Lord of a heaven which itself is not living, should wish to operate through the created things found in these four inferior elements, using the mute and deaf stars as if they were instruments; and if we have one metaphysical science which teaches us how to consider the causer of causes amongst the causes of things; and another, natural science which teaches us to experience the creator of creatures amongst the created things, then what could be more desirable to a thinking man than to have a middle science which might teach us how this and that change in the mundane world is effected by the changes in the celestial bodies?"
      The video also makes the argument that there is no scientific explanation of the causality of astrology therefore the claims of astrology are invalid.
      It is true that there is no scientific basis of causality of astrology. Do you know what else is absolutely impossible according to science? The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
      The sooner we all understand that science can only capture a VERY SMALL subset of what we call reality the better.

    • @the_artisan
      @the_artisan Рік тому +5

      @eliakim5647 absolutely. It would be great if the Thomistic Institute did another video that addressed these points.

    • @anthonyw2931
      @anthonyw2931 Рік тому +2

      @@eliakim5647these are all valid points. The Church’s concern is the worship with the tendency of astrology becoming a belief system and this is where it gets tricky. St. Ambrose didn’t have the kind of knowledge we do and lessons are learned from incidents like Galileo’s.

    • @meusisto
      @meusisto Рік тому

      @@eliakim5647 Thank you for the contents you brought here. About the last sentences, I would say that the ressurection is a miracle. Should one consider astrological events as miracles, instead of nature? That's not what students of this art did, I think.

    • @eliakim5647
      @eliakim5647 Рік тому +2

      ​@@meusisto What is a miracle? Anything that cannot be explained by science right?
      Do we believe that the Holy Eucharist we eat every Sunday is the living body of Christ?
      Do we believe that the Holy Spirit is influencing our thoughts every single day?
      Do we believe that our prayers have any influence to our lives and to the world?
      Do we believe in St John 14:12-14: "Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it."
      If your answers are yes to the questions above, congratulations, you are believing in daily occurring miracles.
      The point is, in today's dark age of the atheistic materialism world view, there is no room for anything outside of what can be experimentally demonstrated by the scientific method. You have to understand that this world view is in direct contradiction with the faith.
      We believe that the Sun's rays can cause a sunburn because we can experimentally prove it. Yet we don't believe that the Sun forming an angular aspect with another planet can cause any effect on people or events on earth. Do you see the problem? Our thinking has been limited and poisoned by the current dominant atheistic materialism world view.
      And to answer your question, traditional medieval and renaissance astrologers absolutely believe that astrology and astrological talismans and astrological elections are acts of magic, or "miracles" if you will.

  • @WPGS25041941
    @WPGS25041941 Рік тому

    What is the view of the Thomistic Institute on Numerology ?

  • @deechacon708
    @deechacon708 11 місяців тому

    Scriptures on believing in ourselves

  • @mstgfstbck
    @mstgfstbck Рік тому +3

    These points were not really invalidating of astrology. Mars in a certain constellation alone will not indicate anything about lifespan. Every astrologer knows this. You have to read planets, houses, lords of the houses, rulers of houses in other houses and maybe moon chart and harmonic charts. Remember Book of Wisdom 11:20 "But you have arranged all things by measure and number and weight." Everything has its order and can be read in the book of nature.

  • @downbya
    @downbya Рік тому

    What was St. Thomas's position on the church "laying down with kings"?😮

  • @JosephFerreira-k6x
    @JosephFerreira-k6x Рік тому

    when a person has been brought back to life, e.g. Lazarus, did God omit Particular Judgment after the first death? Is there any reference to more than one particular judgment. It sees to be self contradictory.

  • @Queezbo
    @Queezbo Рік тому

    #askafriar I am not an astrologer by any means, and used to have a very low opinion of it indeed. But one day I read a book in which a character defines it in a way completely different than anything I had thought of before, completely removing it from any pretense at being natural and scientific. The explanation presented in the book made such sense to me that I have changed my attitude toward astrology and see it as an at-least-somewhat-helpful way for other people to think about their life. I say "other people" because I don't particularly use this tool to think about my own life.
    I am certain that Thomas has nothing to say directly to this idea, but I would be fascinated to hear what a thoughtful, faithful, intelligent thomisticly educated thinker would think about it. I present the quotation below. It is taken from Douglas Adams' book /Mostly Harmless/, which is part of the Hitchhiker's Guide series. In the book, an astrologer is talking to a sensibly skeptical journalist.
    =====
    "I know astrology isn’t a science. Of course it isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary set of rules like chess or tennis or ... parliamentary democracy. The rules just kind of got there. They don’t make any kind of sense except in terms of themselves. But when you start to exercize those rules, all sorts of processes start to happen and you start to find out all sorts of stuff about people. In astrology the rules happen to be about stars and planets, but they could be about ducks and drakes for all the difference it would make. It’s just a way of thinking about a problem which lets the shape of that problem begin to emerge. The more rules, the tinier the rules, the more arbitrary they are, the better. It's like throwing a handful of fine graphite dust on a piece of paper to see where the hidden indentations are. It lets you see the words that were written on the piece of paper above it that’s now been taken away and hidden. The graphite’s not important. It’s just the means of revealing the indentations. So you see, astrology’s nothing to do with astronomy. It’s just to do with people thinking about people."

    • @meusisto
      @meusisto Рік тому

      So what is astrology according to this view?

    • @Queezbo
      @Queezbo Рік тому

      @@meusisto Well, it is a random set of rules that allows one the opportunity to look at events in a different way, by getting out of one's mental rut, so to speak. By providing a random set of unrelated categories to compare reality to, it forces a fresh look at things.
      At least that is how I understand what Adams's character is saying.

    • @meusisto
      @meusisto Рік тому

      @@Queezbo I think that the idea is that it offers symbols to represent reality then?

    • @Queezbo
      @Queezbo Рік тому

      @@meusisto OK.
      I think I would say, "symbols to help one think about reality in a different way."

    • @FigaroHey
      @FigaroHey Рік тому +2

      I've never read that book, but I can speak to this view because I once held it and got quite good, in fact, at 'thinking about people' through an astrological lense. I knew all the signs, as well as understanding how moon signs were supposed to work, etc., and the first thing I would want to know about someone is what category I could put the person in: Oh, you're Aquarius? And then a whole list of characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, capacities for relationships with the other signs would sort of slot into place and become the way I 'thought about' that person. I am someone who from childhood had trouble somehow 'getting' people and their behavior, and this was hugely helpful. It gave me a way of FEELING LIKE I could instantly get a handle on where a person was coming from, the person's outlook on life and approach to life - relationships, conflict, work... it's all covered if you go deeply enough. I could 'know' what to expect from my students and how to teach them if I just learned their astrological signs and taught them according to how 'their sign' learns, for example. It was a tool to 'do better' dealing with people.
      Except, it is actually not true. Like any lie, it has enough 'correctness' to it that it's easy to buy into it. Descriptions for my astrological sign actually do fit with how I perceive myself. But as the decades have passed, I have met people born exactly on my birthday who are very different, don't approach anything the same way I do, and are rather incomprehensible to me in a lot of ways. And I have friends who are so similar to me that it's uncanny how well we understand each other and how similarly we relate to people and work and so on - yet they are born under different signs. But that's not the main point, that it's like any good lie - enough truth to be believable, but enough falsehood to be... well, false, a lie. It's not enough to say, 'Actually, it's not a completely TRUE map to thinking WELL about people.'
      It has so many flaws. For one thing, it tends against free will toward determinism. I thought so completely in those categories that I couldn't see that either I or other people were NOT, in fact, living according to those categories, those descriptions, working and relating and studying and taking up hobbies and so on that match the descriptions. I was wearing a pair of distorting lenses that saw people THROUGH the descriptors (the same as you can do with personality tests, for example, or theories about temperament - they become the ONE and ONLY way you are able to see people, especially as you go deeper into it). I was not allowing people the free will NOT to 'act like your sign.' I was seeing the signs of the signs even when the signs weren't there.
      Another thing it does is gives you a false sense of power. I know some can use this power very negatively, to manipulate and control people. But I was someone who had a hard time understanding why people do things (I still find myself commonly asking, 'what are those people THINKING?" when someone's behavior - yet again - doesn't make sense to me). For me, it was a way to resolve the tension and anxiety of meeting and getting to know a new person. Each person was like a total wild card to me; I had no idea what the person might do or why and it took me a very long time to get used to the person's personality and come to understand what the person was likely to do or not do. In the meantime, I had social anxiety and tension about it. But enter astrology and all I 'needed to do' was get the person's sign, and having read many books on the subject, I had a sense that the person was quite predictable, and would behave or react or work or socialize or form romantic attachments according to certain patterns outlined in the books. I felt like I had insider knowledge before even talking to a person, and it calmed my anxiety about being unsure if the person was friendly or a threat, reasonable in his or her behavior or a loose cannon. I felt prepared for the person to 'be' according to his or her astrological 'pattern,' and it relieved my anxiety. BUT, it didn't allow that person to slowly reveal him- or herself to me. I had a sense of 'I already know you' while I could decide what to reveal about myself; I had the 'power' and 'control' in the relationship because I felt - falsely and unfairly - that I had already worked out who a new person was and all that I really needed to know about that person's behavior, choices, etc. It was incredibly DISRESPECTFUL to sovereign human beings; almost like spying on them and reading their diary before meeting them, to have the upper hand, but also to sort of 'freeze' them into the 'profile' that I had received from astrology. I didn't 'get to know people,' and I didn't appreciate them as wonderful creations of God, full of suprising quirks and the ability to choose against their temperament or training, able to grow and change and develop, capable of altruistic self-sacrifice, etc. I was missing the 'real person' because I was labelling sovereign, unique, unrepeatable human beings with easy categories and relating to them as 'astrological signs' instead of made in the image and likeness of an infinitely creative God. I was disrespecting people.
      I also was giving myself a false sense of security, because looking back, when people behaved 'out of character' - the character written for them by the laws of astrology - I would not attribute that to some true fact about themselves. I can see that there were some really very BAD people who got away with being bad because instead of seeing a manipulative, narcissistic person, I saw the astrological profile that 'explained' the person's actions as 'just who he is.' I overlooked character flaws that led to repeated negative interactions with others because I was searching for the astrological explanation and how I, as my astrological sign, should respond. I was out of touch with the REALITY of people, and it was not actually helping me be safer in relationships.
      In fact, astrology did not serve me in 'thinking WELL about people' because I wasn't thinking about PEOPLE - who will surprise you - but about 'categories' and 'descriptions' and slotting people into them whether they fit or not. People who had good instincts and insight into people would say, 'I wouldn't touch that guy with a ten-foot pole' and I couldn't see why they were avoiding the person: his astrological sign said he was gentle and poetic and harmless. I was told by my very insightful sister-in-law, who could accurately assess a person's character within a few minutes of meeting someone, that a colleague of mine (whom she had never met) was behaving in an odd way (that I reported to her) because he was dishonest, a liar. It took me TEN YEARS and finally open revelation of criminal fraud on that colleague's part before my eyes were opened and I saw that everything I thought I knew about the person was a lie - because being a compulsive liar made perfect sense in the context of his upbringing and personality, but was not part of his astrological profile.
      In short, it's a FALSE and INACCURATE and MISLEADING way of 'thinking about people.' It denies people their individuality and slots them into categories (it's profiling every person you meet and reading everything they say and do through the lens of that profile, instead of accepting them in their totality as a bundle of all kinds of variables). It tends us to think fatalistically: of course you'd react that way; you're a Taurus. We will never get along (and don't have to try) because you're a Saggitarius and I'm a Capricorn (or whatever - I have actively forgotten astrology by refusing to bring it to mind when tempted). I can't date this person because our signs clash; I should date this person because our signs are compatible.
      It is as misleading - and ultimately disrespectful and damaging - a way of 'thinking about people' as racial profiling is. We would never say to a person, 'Oh, you're black so you have great rhthym, dance well, and are good at sports.' Why would we immediately tell someone, 'Oh, you're Scorpio, so you have great business sense and are really attractive to the opposite sex'?
      It's a short-cut to categorizing a person, fitting them into a box, and never having to let him or her reveal him- or herself; not letting the person grow, change, develop or defy the system for 'thinking about people', and for having at least a subtle sense of power because 'I know you, but you don't know me unless you know how to think using this system.'
      It's just as disrespectful as any stereotyping or profiling is - and since it's based on very wobbly foundations, why bother with it?

  • @cvx8279
    @cvx8279 7 місяців тому +2

    Didn't like this one. Feels like I'm being talked down to

  • @jaythemaestr0503
    @jaythemaestr0503 Рік тому

    Joaquin Phoenix phenotype lookin ah

  • @fernandorios7108
    @fernandorios7108 Рік тому

    Planets in the old testament were called wondering stars and it's curious how the have names of Greek gods. Maybe they are not godly entities and that's why they affect some peoples mood. But definitely no of that should matter to catholics walking in a state of grace and following God's commandments. Thanks for the video, God bless!