Talk:Thomistic sacramental theology

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Please note that this article is bsed on the references "Summa Contra Gentiles" and "Summa Thologia" by St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as the Bible ~~ A E Francis —Preceding unsigned comment added by A E Francis (talk • contribs) 15:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability

This article in its present form is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. It is nothing but a string of quotations of very little encyclopediaencyclopedic value. (See WP:NPS and WP:N.) An article on the views of Thomas Aquinas on the sacraments is of value to Wikipedia, but this article in its present form is not. This article needs to be either cleaned up to conform to Wikipedia standards or deleted. —BradV 05:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

BradV: You are entitled to your opinion. But your opinion is wrong. Many have read this article and made changes or contributions. This article is the views of St. Thomas Aquinas, as he wrote them in Summa Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica. Are you suggesting that we should take his actual words and rewrite them into something else? That hardly makes any sense. Oh, and by the way, your use of the word "encyclopedia" is incorrect. It is "encyclodepic", not ""encyclopedia". What are you, a high school student? —Preceding unsigned comment added by A E Francis (talk • contribs) 13:19, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read the guideline "Don't include copies of primary sources". And please, ease up on the personal attacks. I have left a warning on your talk page as well. —BradV 18:32, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Friend Brad: Pointing out that your suggestions are worthy of a high school student is hardly a personal attack. It is a statement of fact. Don't play that "you're attacking me personally" game. For your information, I am a medical doctor and an attorney. I don't attack people personally. If the subject is worthy of inclusion in wikipedia, and the original author's words are available, what is the point in re-writing them? Read the original, and you will see that this is a summary, and does not include the entire text. So far as I know, there is no copyright violation here. If you want to make suggestions about how to improve this article, please do so. A E Francis (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2008 (UTC) A. E. Francis

Francis, you have attacked me personally. You called my opinions "wrong" and called me a high school student. I can overlook that easily enough, but you do not seem willing to listen to my advice. I simply made a comment on the quality of the article (which was not directed at you), regarding its encyclopedic value and notability. For the third time, I will include a link to WP:NPS. Please do not feel obliged to clean up the article yourself, and do not take my comments on the article personally (see WP:OWN). If you feel we cannot resolve this here, perhaps we can request a WP:RFC on this topic. —BradV 05:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Brad, you are delusional. I have not attacked you personally. Your assertion of such is ridiculous. I have not called you a high school student. But your ideas are wrong and your suggestion is worthy of a high school student. You have suggested that this article be re-written using words other than those of the original author. This is based on your reading of some vague template descrption. This is a topic which doesn't lend itself to that particular restriction. But you have offered no suggestions on how to improve the article. So your position is worthy of a high school student. If you want to make this a matter of defending your "honor" and proving me wrong, go ahead and delete this article. Then you will have proved yourself right and me wrong. This is the whole problem of wikipedia. We have articles about "Where Playboy Bunnies were Born" or "Paris Hilton". Yet an article about Aquinas' justification of the Sacraments is deemed not worthy to be included. Yes, your ideas are wrong and you are functioning on the level of a high school student. This is not "my" article. If you will review the history, you will see that several have contributed to it. I can tell you one thing: Roving editors like you are particularly discouraging. I can guarantee you, I will never add a thing to Wikipedia again. Thanks for making this a really great, intellectual site. Good job, man! Don't worry. I'll be telling of your efforts on all the blogs I write on. Unlike wiki, they like what I write. —Preceding unsigned comment added by A E Francis (talk • contribs) 16:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Now four years later this article still fails to meet Wikipedia quality standards. It reads like a blog in support of Aquinas and not like an informative about he and the sacraments. Suggest major revisions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.224.160.223 (talk) 13:56, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Glad you could make it back to be hypercritical and totally non-constructive after a four year absence. A E Francis (talk) 02:30, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Difficulties here

An article on Thomistic doctrine of the sacraments would be a nice thing, but this is just a catena of Thomistic citations. As such, it's not encyclopedic, and it's had plenty of time to get that way. Can we either have an encyclopedia article, or do something more helpful? Tb (talk) 21:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I added some tags, which User:A E Francis contests, specifically, the references and original research tags. The references tag is because the statements are not referenced. References are not just the names of entire books, but page numbers and such. Likewise, this and the original research tags are addressed to clauses in the article like this: "The following is condensed from..." This is a sign that OR is going on. Why is this the right condensation? The interpretation of Aquinas is a huge industry, and we are given nothing here about why this is the right interpretation. The point is that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, which must quote secondary sources. But the article only quotes primary sources. That's nice to do, but it's not an adequate substitute, and makes the result original research (the selection of quotes and the interpretation of them) and unreferenced. Tb (talk) 21:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've removed all tags except the cleanup one, because there is more than enough citation. This is an impressive collection - condensation - about Aquinas' work. It does however need spacing out, and to conform to WP:STYLE before it's really readable. I think that BradV above was very stupid to be so critical. One of the big problems some Wiki-editors have is to be critical, but not constructive: and it's always the ones who actually write very little themselves. The article certainly needs more work (and yes, perhaps more specific references), but I expect that was going to happen had people not interfered with tags and the like. Everyone should keep in mind that there was nothing here before and now there is something. If anyone thinks something is worse than nothing they are not smart. Wikidea 19:21, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

- An academic fallacy has spread onto Wikipedia of late, that it is tertiary. Because it allows original research and debate, however, it can rise into the secondary, and to criticise that is to devalue the original work, indeed to become dogmatic, which breaches the most fundamental principal of the Wikipedia, Ignore All Rules. The does not mean that it should repeat the primary source, in other words to become plagiaristic: but it is equally clear that history is in general the victor's version, and that it is often nationally chauvinistic - an example I quoted in a European discussion paper adopted as a basis for a revised European history in production between the French and Germans cites the absence from French history of the Battle of Agincourt, which was important for the French in that it removed the dead-wood from the aristocracy, leading to important military innovations such as the adoption of artillery which put them at the forefront of European power, and of the Battle of Bouvines in British history, which marked the apogee of British influence in Europe.

The role of this article should be to précis Aquinas' thoelogy. The sources used are in general Catholic, which does infringe NPOV, and so it should at some point be re-edited to remove dogma and expand cultural parallels. That does not completely invalidate the description, and to that end the placarding of the introduction is excessive, which is why I'm winnowing them to the objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.11.66 (talk • contribs) 20:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Removal of stickers

Of late, Wikipedia has developed a habit of criticism rather than constructive writing. The following set demonstrate how the critics want to have their cake and eat it, as the flyers occupying half the top page are internally contradictory - I have therefore reduced them to the objective.

{{Unencyclopedic}}

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.64.11.66 (talk • contribs) 20:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Sort out required

Someone needs to sort out this article. It is not very well structured. Contaldo80 (talk) 14:14, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

What use is "wiping out" the whole article and leaving it blank? A.E.Francis

@A E Francis: your summaries are absolutely horrendous and unacceptable. They are a word salad of non-neutral, badly organised blocs of biased user-made summaries. They do not rely on any WP:RS, or on any clearly defined source for that matter. They have to be removed, there is no other way, nothing is salvageable. And so I removed them. See also WP:BURDEN.

@Pbritti: what do you think? Veverve (talk) 22:36, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@A E Francis: so you are choosing to ignore me and instead are restoring your unsourced, poorly written work, with your own comments messily written and signed between parenthesis, and all that? Are you aware you are violating WP:BURDEN and WP:OWN?

What use is "filling out" the whole article and leaving it artificially filled with information that do not meet Wikipedia's standards? Veverve (talk) 02:07, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

You are also, the way you write, using Wikipedia as your own blog; it is not acceptable, see WP:NOTBLOG. Veverve (talk) 02:11, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Also, you are violating WP:OR, as I explained before. Veverve (talk) 02:16, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

What is the point of editing this article completely into non-existence? It looks like vandalism. A.E.Francis

What is the point of having an article turned into your own personnal, unsourced essay? Veverve (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

@A E Francis: please stop edit-warring and come and discuss. Veverve (talk) 17:42, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps another way to look at this, A E Francis and Veverve is that the article needs to be based around secondary sources. We shouldn't just summarise Aquinas' own words (which is what the long version of this article, by its own admission, did). Aquinas' view of sacraments is obviously a notable subject on which many theologians will have written, and we should summarise what they have said (with essential summaries of Aquinas as necessary), not just regurgitate the primary source. But the deleted version is utterly pointless too. I'm not sure repeated near-blanking is appropriate since it's now contested; the article could be sent to AfD as a TNT case, but it'd be better to improve it. Elemimele (talk) 17:56, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Elemimele: the article will not be TNTed by throught an AfD, as it will be considered as a topic worthy of its own article. I am not willing to go and make my own reasearch with secondary sources to make this article readable. If you want to find secondary sources and improve this article, feel free to do so. I suggest having a look at The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition and Reality; a synthesis of Thomistic thought (p. 245 etc.) if you need to start somewhere.

I am no near-blanking this article, I tried to WP:REMOVETHECHEWINGGUM. It is better to have an article with very few content than A E Francis' own poorly written summaries of OR that are utterly pointless and potentially misleading. Veverve (talk) 18:09, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I sympathise; the long version was definitely inappropriate. Thanks for the refs. I don't know if I'll get a chance or not, and I'm no theologian, I just stumbled across this and thought it looked like it needed a 3rd opinion. But whoever decides to tackle the task, those refs are a good place to start. Elemimele (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Good enough. I wish the wholesale vandalism of this article would stop.A E Francis (talk) A E Francis (talk) 00:19, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@A E Francis: you have already been warned due to you not following BURDEN. Either you source the information you add, or you do not add them. Your poorly written OR has no encyclopedical value. Veverve (talk) 00:23, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Your attempts of mass vandalism are not helpful in the present caseA E Francis (talk) A E Francis (talk) 00:29, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Please stop caracterising my attempt at removing your yearslong OR as vandalism. You do not WP:OWN this article. As another user stated, your version was definitely inappropriate, so it seems like there is a consensus to keep the current version in hope that one day someone provide some good content for this article (content which is not the your (A E Francis) unsourced OR). Veverve (talk) 02:43, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Please quit making assumptions about my efforts to undo your vandalismA E Francis (talk) 22:04, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I will not add back your OR. You have already been warned not to edit-war (my bad, it was not for not following BURDEN, which you did not follow anyway). Also, another user has weighted in. Veverve (talk) 23:01, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

@A E Francis: I have no idea what you are trying to accomplish by adding back your stream of consciousness WP:OR every X months... Veverve (talk) 15:58, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I see no evidence of vandalism here. A E Francis, instead of making these repeated unwarranted accusations, please read Wikipedia:Vandalism.   Maproom (talk) 17:58, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Article protected

Trying to resolve a content dispute by edit-warring is unacceptable. You are experienced editors and you should know better. I have reverted back to a version before this began (that version contained several empty sections, which I combined into "See also"), and full-protected the article for two weeks while you guys sort it out. Resumption of disruption after protection expires will result in blocks on involved accounts; therefore, use the talk page. I am happy to make noncontroversial changes by request while the article is protected. ~Anachronist (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

@Anachronist: Could you do the following in the 'Further reading' section:

1. change "Confiramtion" to "Confirmation"
2. add those two works: The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition; and Reality: A Synthesis of Thomistic Thought ("Sixth Part – The Sacraments of the Church"), pp. 245-71.

Veverve (talk) 17:41, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

 Done. ~Anachronist (talk) 22:33, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

@Anachronist: for your information, A E Francis mass reverted changes once again. Veverve (talk) 07:31, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Total rewrite needed

I agree with @Veverve that this article (based on the August 20, 2022 version) should be totally rewritten. These are the problems that I see, and I would invite @A E Francis to participate in a constructive discussion about how we can improve the quality of the article.

Sourcing issues

1. The original article appears devoid of any reliable sources, such as scholarly explanation/interpretation. This is particularly striking for a topic in which many secondary sources exist, and Wikipedia:RSPRIMARY is clear that Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere.
2. The article relies on references to scripture and the church fathers (without any secondary sources to provide verification and context for these references). This is not allowed on Wikipedia. Wikipedia:RSPRIMARY clearly states that Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
3. In places, A E Francis appears to be offering his own commentary within the article space. For example, the Confirmation#Summa Contra Gentiles section has the following: This is a particularly militant statement by Aquinas, something that is not uncommon in Summa Contra Gentiles. The statement in Summa Theologica is more refined. See infra. AEF. Obviously, this is blatant original research and is not allowed on Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:No original research)

Style issues

1. Lots of very long paragraphs. This makes the article difficult to read.

These issues are serious (especially the sourcing issues), and I would not support returning the article to what it was. The goal should be to find reliable secondary sources and stop using original research in the form of scripture and editorial commentary. Ltwin (talk) 21:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

If @Veverve and @A E Francis can agree to stop edit-warring, we could unprotect sooner so you can make a start on these improvements — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: I agree not to revert additions of reliably and properly sourced material. However, I believe (and it seems to be the opinion of most here) that A E Francis' unsourced walls of texts should be removed should anyone try to add them back. I also believe in WP:REMOVINGTHECHEWINGGUM in general. Veverve (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 1 February 2023

Please remove AfD template as I have closed the deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomistic sacramental theology. ❯❯❯ Raydann^(Talk) 21:38, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

 Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:13, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Restored prior version

I restored the version prior to the mass vandalism that occurred last yearA E Francis (talk) 02:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

Without fixing any of the problematic sourcing issues it should be noted. Ltwin (talk) 03:35, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

@A E Francis: this is not how it works. Veverve (talk) 11:50, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

A.E. Francis can still participate on this talk page, but has been indef-blocked from editing the article. ~Anachronist (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2023 (UTC)