Since the Son is incarnate, argues Aaron Riches in his Ecce Homo, “we must speak of unum esse simpliciter,” yet Constantinople II determined that the Son is persona composita. Thus, in the words of Aquinas, “there is another being of this suppositum . . . insofar as it became a man in time.” Riches glosses this with: “In this regard, we speak of Christ’s secundarium esse, which is not the esse principale of his suppositum, but is rather the mode... Read more
1 Chronicles 22:6–16 records David’s hortatory speech to Solomon about building the temple. It is divided into two large sections, both marked by the phrase “my son” (22:7, 11). The first section repeats Yahweh’s oracle to David explaining why he would not build the house and promising that David’s son would build a house. Based on Yahweh’s commitment to Solomon, David exhorts his son to build. the exhortation is framed by a chiastic inclusio: A. Yahweh be with you, 11a... Read more
When King Nahash of Ammon dies, David sends his condolences to his son Hanun (1 Chronicles 19). Nahash had shown love-and-loyalty (hesed) to David, so David returns hesed (v. 2). Hanun doesn’t believe it, and the princes (apparently young advisors) stoke up his suspicions (v. 3). David isn’t sending messengers to honor his father but to spy out the land; David obviously thinks that Ammon is vulnerable during its interregnum, that Hanun is just a boy (“tennis balls, my liege”),... Read more
In his Eclipse of Man, Charles Rubin traces a genealogy of transhumanism. Among the sources is a now-forgotten 1872 book by William Winwood Reade, The Martyrdom of Man. Reade looked ahead to the time when science would enable human beings to transcend their bodies: “These bodies which now we wear belong to the lower animals; our minds have already outgrown them; already we look upon them with contempt. A time will come when Science will transform them by means which... Read more
Nick Spencer (Atheists: The Origin of the Species) doesn’t believe the standard creation myths about atheism. According to the standard account, atheism is the produce of reason and science: “men began to work the metal, which they called ‘reason’, using it to forge a new weapon, which they called ‘science’, and they used ‘science’ to attack the monster, and the very clever men.” The monster, of course, was religion, and the men of science “had to be very careful at... Read more
In an essay on “America’s Shakespeare” at National Interest, Algis Valiunas traces the shifting political of Shakespeare in the US. Whitman initially thought Shakespeare was “poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common people, the life-blood of Democracy.” Further study of the history plays led him to the conclusion that Shakespeare was a good American democrat after all. By exposing the evils of medieval kingship, Shakespeare wrote “the first full exposé…of the political theory and results,... Read more
Linguist and philosopher George Lakoff, co-author of Metaphors We Live By and many other works, wants to help Democrats win elections. In a Salon interview with Paul Rosenberg, he explains the advantages conservatives have in American elections. Studying and doing business, he argues, is good training for political persuasion: “If you’re a conservative going into politics, there’s a good chance you’ll study cognitive science, that is, how people really think and how to market things by advertising. So they know... Read more
Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter (Nation of Rebels) characterize the 1999 film, American Beauty, as “a completely uncompromising recitation of ’60s countercultural ideology. It’s the hippies versus the fascists, still slugging it out three decades after Woodstock.” The characters split neatly into two groups: “the countercultural rebels: the narrator, Lester Burnham; his daughter, Jane; and the neighbor kid, Ricky Fitts.” They are the good guys because “they all smoke dope, behave in nonconformist ways (and are thus ostracized by the... Read more
Jesus is the Lion of Judah. This is no random metaphor, according to the medieval bestiary, the verse Physiologus attributed to the 11th-century writer Theobaldus. Lions have various habits, all of which point to Christ. For instance: “As the Lion dwells on the high mountain, so Christ the spiritual Lion dwells in the highest heaven. Whence He says ‘I dwell in the highest.’ And as the Lion, when he comes down from the mountain, wipes out with his tail the... Read more
Summarizing a line of argument from Aquinas, Robert Spaemann (Essays in Anthropology) notes that Thomas acknowledges that “By nature animals are sufficiently equipped to attain their own end” (15). The question is: Are human beings? And if the end of human beings is union with God, how can we not be equipped to attain that? If we say that, however, aren’t we slipping into Pelagianism? Spaemann quotes Thomas: “Just as nature does not fail man in necessaries, although it has... Read more
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