Christian Historicism

Last updated on: September 29, 2017 at 2:49 pm By Peter Leithart

John Milbank argues in his Beyond Secular Order that “historicism cannot straightforwardly be considered as something specifically modern” (8). In fact, it originates from a Christian insight: “the sense of estranged distance from the past is initially the fruit of the Christian contrast between old and new covenants and with the pagan world. Even the Renaissance sense of a loss of pagan glories is not unanticipated by Patristic accounts of the general decline of the human race and the way that pagans... Read more

No Thucydides Trap

Last updated on: September 29, 2017 at 2:46 pm By Peter Leithart

Last week, I wrote a Firstthings.com column summarizing the argument of Graham Allison’s Destined for War, a study of Sino-American relations organized around the concept of the “Thucydides Trap.” Allison says that the ancient Greek historian claimed that Athens and Sparta went to war because Sparta was fearful of the rise of Athens. He worries that China and America are headed for a similar clash. A reader pointed me to Arthur Waldron’s scathing review of Allison’s book. Waldron’s critique is twofold:... Read more

Bodies Renewed by Christ’s Body

Last updated on: September 29, 2017 at 2:44 pm By Peter Leithart

Christine Chaillot has a fascinating summary of the liturgical traditions of the “Ancient Oriental Churches” (Egyptian, Ethiopian, Syrian, Assyrian, Indian) in The Oxford History of Christian Worship. She quotes this Eucharistic hymn from the fifth-century Saint Yazdin (p. 164): “Strengthen, O our Lord, the hands which reach out and take the sacrament for the pardon of debts. Make them worthy every day to yield fruit to Your Godhead. Make worthy to sing glory the mouths which have given praise within... Read more

Do Human Beings Create?

Last updated on: September 28, 2017 at 5:16 pm By Peter Leithart

In ST I, 45, 5, Thomas Aquinas asks whether God alone creates. His sed contra cites Augustine’s de Trinitate (3.8), where Augustine says that angels cannot create anything. If angels cannot, Thomas reasons, neither can any other creature. He presents several arguments in favor of this conclusion. Creation is, Thomas Aquinas argues, “absolute positing . . . of everything in its full concreteness of existence.” In this, finite causes make no contributions at all. In order to create – in... Read more

Art

Last updated on: September 23, 2017 at 2:36 am By Peter Leithart

The following thoughts are largely inspired by Rowan Williams’s Grace and Necessity. 1. Art is about making, not primarily about making a point. It is not fundamentally self-expression, or copying something that’s already there. It’s about constructing a new thing, an object. 2. If this is true, then the demands are imposed by the art itself, not by conformity to some pre-existing idea, or the good of the world, or some ideological propagantistic goal. Striving for something beautiful in some general... Read more

Against Sacraments

Last updated on: September 21, 2017 at 8:01 pm By Peter Leithart

The following is an extract from chapter 3 of my Against Christianity (Canon Press, 2003). You can get a 30% discount on the book by entering LEITREADER during checkout at www.canonpress.com/AgainstChristianity Modernity is a revolt against ritual, and the modern city is an unprecedented attempt to form a civic community without a festive center. *** Removing the creche from the town square is the very essence of modernity, whose first commandment is, “Thou shalt have no common symbols.” *** Six overlapping tendencies... Read more

Apocalyptic Wisdom

Last updated on: September 26, 2017 at 8:09 am By Peter Leithart

Sheba comes to Jerusalem to test Solomon. He passes the test. He can answer everything she asks. 2 Chronicles 9:2 describes the encounter with a neat chiasm: A. Reported (nagad) to her B. Solomon C. all her words. D. Not-hidden C’. a word B’. from Solomon A’. which he did not report (nagad) to her. The text hides the verb “hide” (‘alam) at the center of the text, then negates it. All that is hidden is made known. We can... Read more

Materializing De Lubac?

Last updated on: September 26, 2017 at 3:12 am By Peter Leithart

Like most contemporary theologians writing on the Eucharist, David Grumett (Material Eucharist) works off of the work of Henri de Lubac. But he identifies two “principal shortcomings” in de Lubac’s eucharistic theology (8). The first was an “excessively narrow ecclesial lens.” Eucharistic and ecclesial realism support each other, de Lubac argued, but he failed to see that “the Eucharist cannot be the Church’s sole possession. Employing the created, material elements of bread and wine, it also needs to be related through... Read more

The Ark and the Tent

Last updated on: September 25, 2017 at 5:15 pm By Peter Leithart

When Moses ascends Sinai with the priests and elders, they see the God of Israel resting his feet on a sapphire pavement above them as they eat and drink (Exodus 24). The scene has a triadic structure: mountain, pavement, and Yahweh above. That structure is replicated in the ark of the covenant (Exodus 25). The ark proper is a wooden box, overlaid with gold inside and out. The lid is a solid gold slab, and a cherubim throne is worked... Read more

Scientific Miracles

Last updated on: September 22, 2017 at 6:07 am By Peter Leithart

Bill Gates is looking for an energy miracle. Fossil fuels pollute, but they are far and away the cheapest and most efficient fuels. Nothing else has come close and, argues Mark Mills in The New Atlantis, we cannot imagine anything coming close, given the current state of physics. To get a miracle, we don’t need more money or energy in improving current technologies. We need a conceptual revolution, a theoretical breakthrough. And, Gates knows, this can only come by devoting... Read more