In his introduction to his English translation of Ernst Cassirer’s The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , Peter Gay comments (p. 27): “Rousseau’s ‘one great principle’ – that man is good, that society makes him bad, but that only society, the agent of perdition, can be the agent of salvation is a critical tool. It affirms not only that reform is desirable but, more important, that it is possible, and it suggests that a society which creates not only knaves and... Read more
Rousseau ( Emile: Or, On Education , 322-3 ) exults in “what the ancients accomplished with eloquence,” but notes that for them eloquence “did not consist solely in fine, well-ordered speeches.” Rather, “what was said most vividly was expressed not by words but by signs.” Romans were masters of the language of signs: (more…) Read more
It is a joy to hear about the Trinity Institute and the involvement of Peter Leithart and Jim Jordan. Peter brings a powerful mind and a pastor’s heart to his calling to educate and train a new generation for pastoral ministry. Jim adds a remarkably creative mind and his penetrating insight into the Scriptures. Protestants, in my judgment, have done an excellent job of grammatical analysis of the biblical texts. We have not, however, been as successful at reading them... Read more
Yahweh summons the nations to bring their witnesses to vindicate themselves (Isaiah 43:9), but Israel is the chief witness in His defense (43:9, 10, 12; 44:8, 9). How? Isaiah 44:8 appears to give the answer: (more…) Read more
When Yahweh pours out the refreshing water of the Spirit on the dry land of Israel, it will transform the land. And it will give everyone a new identity, a new belonging. One will say, I am Yahweh’s, another will identify himself by the name of Jacob, and another will write “Belonging to Yahweh” on his hand and name Israel (Isaiah 44:5). But Isaiah doesn’t want us to be Corinthian here. This is not an “I am of Yahweh, I... Read more
The Servant of Yahweh comes quietly and gently, no breaking off a bent stick or snuffing out a smoldering wick (42:2; Heb. upishtah kechah lo yekabenah ). Ain’t he nice? But Yahweh does what the Servant does not do – He quenches and extinguishes wicks (43:17; Heb. kapishtah kavu ). Not so nice. The difference is not between the gentle Servant and mean Yahweh. The difference is the object of their action: Faced with the smoldering wick of Israel, the... Read more
Yahweh is the Holy One. Many interpreters suggest that this means that He is transcendent, other, separated from creation and all that is unholy and unclean. Holy things and persons and places are separated to Yahweh: To call them holy is to say that Yahweh claims exclusive rights to them. Let’s grant those definitions of “holy.” But then we have the marvelous genitive uses of Isaiah. Yahweh is not just the Holy One flat out, but the Holy One of... Read more
Pages 157-9 of Patrick Coleman’s Anger, Gratitude, and the Enlightenment Writer provide the best summary I’ve come across of what happens to gratitude in the early modern period and Enlightenment. There’s a political dimension: Because of the rise of nation-states and new definitions of sovereignty, and because of religious division and conflict, “distinguishing the exact scope and form of different kinds of obligation became a matter of pressing concern.” In France, the “development of polite sociability in the salons and... Read more
In his Fallen Nature, Fallen Selves: Early Modern French Thought II (v. 2) (p. 43-4), Michael Moriarty observes that Descartes limited the scope of mechanistic philosophy. For Descartes, mechanical explanations offer “a new theory of how the passions work” but in contrast to Hobbes “he does not attempt to rethink ethics altogether in terms of the mechanistic philosophy. The mechanistic perspective is alone valid within physics, but it cannot be generalized beyond that context.” Thus, from one angle, we can... Read more
In his Reveries of the Solitary Walker (Oxford World’s Classics) , Rousseau muses on the “complete and utterly disinterested benevolence” that he would show if he could avoid “forming an attachment to anyone in particular” and “taking on the burden of any responsibilities.” If only he could be entirely anonymous, he says, “I would freely and willingly do for them everything that they have so much difficulty in doing, promoted as they are by their self-love and constrained by their... Read more
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Leithart
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