The extension of rights to the Jews was one of the great achievements of the French Revolution, and Rosenstock-Huessy moves from a discussion of the resulting Jewish enthusiasm for liberalism to a digression dealing with the relation of Jews and Gentiles in history. It is titled “Alpha and Omega,” and this link of protology and eschatology will become important for what he has to say about the continuing role of the Jews in the Christian era. (more…) Read more
Rosenstock-Huessy’s discussion of Voltaire and Rousseau depends on his prior discussion of the role of inspired literature in the formation of a nation. They are adherents to the revolutionary creed of literary inspiration, the “cult o f an inspired literature.” He compares the two to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, for like them the two French writers prevented a simple romanticism. Voltaire and Rousseau “divided their labor, one aiming at the individual, the other at the institutions.” (more…) Read more
Rosenstock-Huessy deals with a number of interrelated issues in a section of Out of Revolution dealing with Paris and the French notion of nationhood: He talks about the establishment of Paris as the intellectual center of France and of Europe; about the division between Paris and Versailles as background to the Revolution; and about the French conception of “nation.” (more…) Read more
A couple of thoughts on the Calvin quotations I posted yesterday, inspired by a reader’s response. 1) Calvin appeals to his doctrine of “accommodation” to explain why the sign of baptism is necessary. God does speak in ways we can grasp; if that’s all accommodation is, fine. But it often carries the implication that signs are somehow a imprecise, second-best form of communication. That is a false step, and a devastating one, in that it suggests that we might hope... Read more
Tom Smail’s Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in Our Humanity (Eerdmans 2005) has a lot going for it. Written for a general Christian readership, it reflects a thorough familiarity with both tradition and contemporary work on the Trinity, and applies Trinitarian patterns to human life in interesting ways. His chapter on “Gendered Image” shows an unfortunate skittishness about feminism, endorses ordination of women, and doesn’t deal with all the relevant biblical texts; but even that chapter has its... Read more
Stahmer offers this useful summary of Rosenstock-Huessy’s and Rosenzweig’s attack on “objectivity”: “For J. G. Hamann, and for all those who have accepted the sacramental qualities inherent in the frailty and tentativeness of human speech, the ambiguities and relativity of history could not possibly be denied. Both Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig certainly knew full well that what one holds to be ‘objectively’ true, at the moment, is conditioned by time and history, and that perfect objectivity is simply not possible; in... Read more
In their capacity as Sprachdenkern – Speech-thinkers, Rosenstock-Huessy and Rosenzweig anticipated a number of developments in philosophy, theology, and hermeneutics. Stahmer writes, “Both Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy, but most especially the latter, can now be seen to have been hermeneutical pioneers who anticipated, by many years, the work of Martin Heidegger, Rudolf Bultmann, Gerhard Ebeling, Ernst Fuchs, Martin Buber, Amos Wilder, et al. in recognizing and dealing with such matters as the philosophical and theological problems of demythologizing, problems of interpretation,... Read more
Harold Stahmer traces Rosenstock-Huessy’s notion of a “Johannine” age to Schelling: “In Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation . . . the millennarian idea of the successive ‘ages’ of the world – the Petrine, the Pauline, and finally the Johannine – is developed at length. These ages were linked by schelling to three historic forms of Christianity: the Petrine age to Roman Catholicism, the Pauline to Protestantism, and the Johannine age, i.e. th Age of the Spirit, to a new era marked... Read more
Markus Barth describes Ephesians 5:22-33 as a lover’s song, but distinguishes the love expressed there, the love of Jesus for His bride, from all other loves: “The vision of love described by Paul is sui generis . Though Christ’s love includes features found in many a strong, wise and devoted man’s love, there is something unique in his love: this lover has the will, the power, and the success to make his bride perfect. He loves his beloved only for... Read more
Markus Barth gives a thrilling summary of Paul’s description of Christ and the church in Ephesians (I’ve left out the texts Barth refers to): “Christ was called the beloved Son; the church, the chosen people, God’s children. He, the administrator; they, the heirs. He, the risen; they, those raised with and in him. He, the savior; they, the saved. He, the head; they, his body and its members. He, the bringer of peace; they, the people reconciled with God and... Read more
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