Jay Richards scores a heavy hit against Lindbeck’s theory of doctrine with this: “rule theory . . . seems to deny what almost everyone assumes the Creed and Definition – and the doctrines therein – are: claims about God and Christ. This definition of doctrines . . . doesn’t capture what nearly everyone means by the word.” That’s a hard saying for a theory that equates use and meaning, and Richards goes on: “Lindbeck applies the mantra that use governs... Read more
The subtitle of Benjamin Crowe’s Heidegger’s Religious Origins: Destruction and Authenticity (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion) highlights the twin themes of his book, both of which, he argues, were shaped by Heidegger’s study of Christian theology. The notion that philosophy is Destruktion comes from Luther, who, Crowe argues, viewed his own theology as a polemical destructio of everything pertaining to the old man – that is, scholasticism, Aristotle, reason, philosophy, theologia gloriae . Inspired, Heidegger saw his philosophy... Read more
Bruno Latour’s Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers through Society is built around the insight that science is a Janus, one face “ready-made science” with its apparently closed black boxes and the other the face of “science in the making” where we see how boxes get closed, or almost closed. He describes the procedure of his book by imagining a comic strip: “We start with a textbook sentence which is devoid of any trace of fabrication, construction... Read more
For all of Hofstadter’s partisan distortions, he was right to note that paranoia, anxious defensiveness, characterizes American politics. But this paranoia is more deeply rooted in American character and institutions that Hofstadter imagined. America has regularly seen itself as the guarantor of human freedom. Not just American freedom, but the freedom of humanity. We were the first to enter the novus ordo saeclorum , and we are eager for others to follow. Our founding vision say that America is freedom,... Read more
“It is a notorious fact that the Monarchs of Europe and the Pope of Rome are at this very moment plotting our destruction and threatening the extinction of our political, civil, and religious institutions. We have the best reasons for believing that corruption has found its way into our Executive Chamber, and that our Executive head is tainted with the infectious venom of Catholicism . . . . The Pope has recently sent his ambassador of state to this country... Read more
Jenson writes: “Time is because the Spirit is not the Father, and beacuse both meet in the Son. Time is because God is his own origin and as such is not his goal; because God is his own goal and as such is not the ‘natural’ result of his own being as origin; because origin and goal in God are an irreversibly ordered pair; and because the Father and Spirit meet and are reconciled in the Son.” To unravel a... Read more
David Dorsey offers these neat contrasts between the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14 and Yahweh’s Suffering Davidic servant in the latter part of Isaiah: The king of Babylon smites ( nakah ), 14:6; the Servant is smitten ( nakah ), 53:4-5, 10. The king of Babylon slays and oppresses ( nagash ), 14:2, 4, 10; the Servant is oppressed ( nagash ), 53:7-8. The king of Babylon shakes the earth and boasts, 14:13-14, 16; the Servant is humble, quiet,... Read more
Isaiah’s references to the Sabbath occur at the beginning (1:13) and end (56:2, 4, 6; 58:13; 66:23) of his prophecy. The book is framed by an initial condemnation of the Sabbath and a promise that all men will bow to Yahweh from Sabbath to Sabbath. Along the way, the word is used eight times. Yahweh will turn Israel’s corrupted Sabbaths into delightful Sabbaths, and more: He will break out of the Sabbatical pattern altogether and bring in an eighth day... Read more
In The Intellectual Construction of America: Exceptionalism and Identity From 1492 to 1800 , Jack Greene reviews the literature on “American exceptionalism,” and takes exception to the common notion that this theme is a 19th or 20th century phenomenon. He opposes the “current effort to assimilate colonial American to early modern European history.” The main reason is that this assimilation fails to do justice to the common perception among early modern observers that America was in fact different: Contemporary interpreters... Read more
The notion that the Constitution has to grow with the nation is often seen as an innovation of the twentieth century. Yet, similar arguments were being aired early in the 19th century. Henry Clay, erstwhile ally of Jefferson and Madison, stated a form of “National Republicanism” that sounded a lot like Hamiltonian Federalism with a populist slant. “A new world has come into being since the Constitution was adopted,” Clay argued during a Congressional debate in the 1820s, “Are the... Read more
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