class notes from Wednesday

There must be a checks and balances type of society when the earth is populated with sinful men and women. We must always be responsible to someone who is keeping us in order. We have a nature that wants to be gaining more and more power without thinking of the consequences or of others. As we gain more authority our sin nature takes over and we become tyrannical.

There has and always will be several spheres in the world. The largest and most general ones are family, church and state. We can also add art, music, schools, guilds, and other groups like these. In the ideal Christian culture, God is the leader over all the spheres, with the top three we mentioned being at equal with each other. They have the same amount of authority and different jobs among the society. The state is to administer justice and Godly laws; the church is to make the call of salvation to the ungodly and to train those within God's house; and the family is to train up the children with discipline and to lead them in the right path.

Anarchy can lead to a Mahat system where you have nothing but individualism. You are nothing but a drone doing the same thing day after day.

In a culture running from God, beauty turns to ugliness, truth to lies, and goodness to evil.

You can always tell what a man loves by what he adorns or beautifies. That with which the most time is spent making beautiful is that which controls you.

There is a difference between rights and duties is the fact that rights make it about the self, while duties make it more about others. We are to always be thinking towards how we can benefit and help others rather then ourself.

Truth cannot change even if you attempt to change it or change the meaning. It will always remain the truth even if the majority denies it.

The culture's worldview will set the standard, morals, ethics, and laws. It will be the determiner of justice.

Goodness (sociological), Beauty (art), and Truth (theology) are all wrapped up and connected to each other. You can't have one without the others.

Everything ugly can come to Christ and be beautified.

When you can read a cathedral, you can read medievalism itself. This is a road map, a simplified guide to the whole of the civilization. All the ideas that had come to the Medievals through the gospel were poured into the design of the cathedrals.

Many different areas of life were touched by the influence of the monasteries. Their art, music, architecture, gardens, tools, clothes, and food were all manifestations of their theology. Their churches, monasteries, and guilds showed forth their virtue and chivalry ideals. They centralized the Scripture, philosophy and education while drawing lines for the different spheres and living out conciliarism. There were also practical aspects to their way of thinking. They had creativity and imagination leading to an adorned world with new technology and innovation. They had checks and balances, rights, liberty, justice, mercy, standards and absolutes, rules of law, stability, and reform. This led to a stable and secure culture. They were extremely future minded. They would volunteer to work on a cathedral that wouldn't be finished for another 450 years. Now a days, we don't even bother to do that, and our buildings suffer because of it. We don't get the beauty that was created back then.

Vocabulary:

apt - inclined, disposed, given, prone

embrasure - a splayed enlargement of a door or window toward the inner face of a wall

tympanum - the recessed, usually triangular space enclosed between the horizontal and sloping cornices of a pediment

aperture - an opening, as a hole, slit, crack, gap etc.

oblique - neither perpendicular nor parallel to a given line or surface; slanting; sloping

facade - the front of a building, especially an imposing or decorative one

sylvan - of, pertaining to, or inhabiting the woods

pedestrian - a person who goes or travels on foot

tetramorphic - a tetramorph is a symbolic arrangement of four differing elements. The term is derived from the Greek tetra, meaning four, and morph, shape

congruity - merit bestowed as a divine gift rather than earned

hue - a gradation or variety of a color; tint

consonance - accord or agreement

conciliar - of, pertaining to, or issued by a council

constancy - uniformity or regularity, as in qualities or conditions; invariableness

halcyon - calm, peaceful, tranquil

glazier - a person who fits windows or the like with glass or panes of glass

tracery - ornamental work consisting of ramified ribs, bars, or the like, as in the upper part of a Gothic window, in panels, screens, etc.

mullion - a vertical member, as of stone or woods, between the lights of a window, the panels in wainscoting or the like

gargoyle - a grotesquely carved figure of a human or animal

grotesque - any grotesque object, design, person or thing

narthex - an enclosed passage between the main entrance and the nave of a church

transept - any major transverse part of the body of a church, usually crossing the nave, at right angles, at the entrance to the choir

apse - a semicircular or polygonal termination or recess in a building, usually vaulted.

iconostasis - a partition or screen on which icons are placed, separating the sanctuary from the main part of the church.

triforium - the wall at the side of the nave, choir, or transept, corresponding to the space between the vaulting or ceiling and the roof of an aisle

clerestory - a portion of an interior rising above adjacent rooftops and having windows admitting daylight to the interior

tracery - ornamental work consisting of ramified ribs, bars, or the like, as in the upper part of a Gothic window in panels, screens, etc.

lectern - a reading desk in a church on which the Bible rests and from which the lessons are read during the church service.

pulpit - a platform or raised structure in a church from which the sermon is delivered or the sermon is conducted.