Jonathan Heaps
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jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Jonathan Heaps
@jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
1.1K followers 81 following 6.9K posts
Director, Lonergan Institute at Seton Hall University // *The Ambiguity of Being: Lonergan and the Problems of the Supernatural* (CUA Press)
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jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
That’s about 4hrs of accumulation here in S Orange NJ. Just… *checks forecast* ~12 more hours of this to go.
A snow-covered suburban New Jersey neighborhood street scene
January 25, 2026 at 3:33 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
My birthday is in a few weeks and now all I want is the chance to tell Miller to shut the fuck up in person
January 24, 2026 at 9:49 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
And she has the gall to bug me for an early dinner as if it never happened
January 24, 2026 at 7:45 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Sticker by @artofmarza.bsky.social
A sticker of John the Baptist holding his own severed head with the words “speak truth to power”
January 24, 2026 at 6:19 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
The last of the batter gets scraped out with a spatula & becomes the Big Dad Pancake™️.
A big, slightly heart-shaped pancake on a griddle
January 24, 2026 at 4:55 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
*deep DEEP breath*

Sharing these chunky pancakes boys to cleanse the timeline ahead of righteous rage posting
Four chonky golden pancake bois on a griddle
January 24, 2026 at 4:09 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
The essence of negative partisanship is supporting one party because of an aversion to its opponents. My best friend once told me that the measure of one's negative partisanship can be found by reflecting on whose fringes you find silly and whose you find dangerous.
January 22, 2026 at 8:35 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Like she just don’t care
One of my daughters asleep in my bed with her hands stretched all the way up above her head.
January 22, 2026 at 2:02 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Well, that J.Crew delivery arrived just in time:
January 21, 2026 at 9:12 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Josefine (8) absolutely roasting me in the Gizmo watch chat
Me: I will finish my work as fast as I can and come home okay Josefine: snail emoji
January 21, 2026 at 2:27 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Jim Downey on Conan’s podcast
January 21, 2026 at 2:08 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
R Reno declaring the insufficiency of liberty on the right. Dignitatis infinita grounding human dignity in liberty on the left.
9. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the classical definition of a person as an "individual substance of a rational nature"[17] clarifies the foundation of human dignity. As an "individual substance," the person possesses ontological dignity (that is, at the metaphysical level of being itself. Having received existence from God, humans are subjects who "subsist"-that is, they exercise their existence autonomously. The term "rational" encompasses all the capacities of the human person, including the capacities of knowing and understanding, as well as those of wanting, loving, choosing, and desiring; it also includes all corporeal functions closely related to these abilities. "Nature" refers to the conditions particular to us as human beings, which enable our various operations and the experiences that characterize them; in this sense, nature is the "principle of action." We do not create our nature; we hold it as a gift and we can nurture, develop, and enhance our abilities. By exercising One need not proclaim that liberalism has failed in order to be ranged among the postliberals. It is enough to say that liberalism is not enough; that freedom is not enough; that pluralism, which will always be with us, is a challenge not a blessing; that universal truths about the human condition, though real, do not provide sufficient bases for a fully human life. Liberalism prunes but does not plant. It does not speak the language of love and devotion. Men can live in bondage and be human. But they cannot live without love.
January 20, 2026 at 1:12 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Pretty morning here on our little corner
The sun shining on snow-dusted suburban NJ street
January 19, 2026 at 3:37 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Screenshot on the left is from my essay, “Being You.” It’s posted at www.jonathanheaps.com/being-you
We-that is, those of us who are not 'you'-share in this privilege. We share in the privilege of you being you. You are always 'you' with us. With some of us, anyway. In fact, that adds to the privilege: those of us with you join an elite who have the privilege of experiencing, knowing, interacting with the unique and unrepeatable you. This privilege is irreplaceable, and because it is irreplaceable, it is precious. But it also heightens your dilemma. Because everything you do determines who you will be, you are responsible for who it is we are with. You are deciding what it will be like to be with you. Will you be trustworthy or will you be irresponsible? Will you be thoughtful or foolish? Interested or indifferent? Attentive or obtuse? Present or absent? Only you can choose which to be and your choices will determine not only who you are, but who we are with. "More or less: man exists in two poles that cannot be torn asunder; he is always himself and his neighbor. He alone has to give eternity an account of how he has lived, yet the substance of that account is the way he has lived alongside his neighbor." (Balthasar, Theo-Drama 4, 62-63) 9:02 AM • Jan 19, 2026
January 19, 2026 at 2:20 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Wrote my ~600 words for the day, edited some page proofs, & answered some emails, so now I’m resting on my couch w/ this sleepy doggy donut until I gotta go get kids from school
January 16, 2026 at 6:03 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
A sample/precis of how I characterize rationality in *The Ambiguity of Being*
If the previous chapter, in its detail and preliminary nature, tried my reader's patience, perhaps allow me to set down again its main point: human rationality consists in an autonomous intellectual process integrally mediated by meaning and productive of constructed verba or concepts. Human rationality, because it consists in a process, is irreducibly diachronic. Because the process is intellectual and not merely intelligible, it is neither mechanical nor automatic, but rather autonomous. Because the nature of intellectual act consists in the immediate and so indistinct apprehension of form, intellectual process is mediated by some distinct expression of what has been apprehended. The expression of these mediating objects (verba or concepts) is consequently an act of meaning. Finally, because subsequent acts of understanding have the same nature as preceding acts that is, they have quidditas rei materialis for their agent object the mediating objects of human rationality bear, in addition to their intelligible content, some phantasmatic element. This allows them to be properly disposed as agent object for subsequent intellectual acts, including the acts of true judgment in which knowledge of being consists. But the intelligent combination of diverse elements into a unity is a construction, a factum. In conceptualization, then, we may see how rationality, autonomy, mediation, poiesis, and knowledge function integrally.
January 16, 2026 at 11:39 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
(Oh, btw, the answer is that the radical dependence of human autonomy upon God to be at all is why theonomy is a species of autonomy, not heteronomy)
Thus God's operation in every created operation is ad modum naturae. Indeed, it must be, because deus operatur in omni operante is a theorem, not a datum. By extension, God operating in the human will does not prevent human minds from causing their own acts formally, nor deprive our wills of the freedom to contingently act or not to act. God causes our causality in its mode of emergencenamely, as contingent freedom. At the same time, God irresistibly produces the effect God intends, but again in its mode of being, including the mode of freedom/liberty. This is simply the specifically human volitional instance of the general relation of temporal and contingent causes predicated of God as the effects of his irresistible action.
January 16, 2026 at 2:00 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Justice Gorsuch with laser eyes
January 14, 2026 at 3:28 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Half-day pizza + Sunny D lunch w/ Hanna
January 13, 2026 at 5:31 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Officials have long struggled to understand how a device powerful enough to cause the kind of damage some victims have reported could be made portable; that remains a core question, according to one of the sources briefed on the device. The device could fit in a backpack, this person said.
January 13, 2026 at 1:35 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Not the point but, as a purely logistical matter, how can one both impede *and* follow agents?
"Sir! This is a warning!" the agent yelled as he punched the man's vehicle window. "Stop f-king following us! You are impeding operations! This is the United States federal government!"
January 12, 2026 at 5:15 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Painting of St Perpetua guiding a gladiator’s sword to her own neck
January 12, 2026 at 2:04 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Indeed!
The dark flesh color is due to the presence of anthocyanins, a family of polyphenol pigments common to many flowers and fruit, but uncommon in citrus fruits. ' Chrysanthemin (cyanidin 3-0-glucoside) is the main compound found in red oranges. 2! The flesh develops its characteristic red color when the fruit develops with low temperatures during the night. 3) Sometimes, dark coloring is seen on the exterior of the rind as well. This depends on the variety of blood orange. The skin can be tougher and harder to peel than that of other oranges. Blood oranges have a unique flavor compared to other oranges, being distinctly raspberry-like in addition to the usual citrus notes. 3! The anthocyanin pigments of blood oranges begin accumulating in the vesicles at the edges of the segments, and at the blossom end of the fruit, and continue accumulating in cold storage after harvest.
January 12, 2026 at 1:21 AM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Reading I from Mass today (Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7):
Reading I Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7 Thus says the LORD: Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom 1 am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit; he shall bring forth justice to the nations, not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street. a bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench, until he establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for his teaching. I, the LORD, have called you for the victory of justice, I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you, and set you as a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.
January 11, 2026 at 8:22 PM
jonathanrheaps.bsky.social
Working thru the year’s first bag of blood oranges
A peeled blood orange segment
January 11, 2026 at 1:05 AM