Pomegranates and priests

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:04 am By Peter Leithart

The Bible first mentions pomegranates in connection with the priestly garments of glory and beauty. Bells and pomegranates alternate along the hem of the priest’s robe (Exodus 28:33-34; 29:24-26), the bells sounding to “warn” Yahweh of the priest’s approach. In the temple, this gets picks up in the pomegranate chains that adorn the two pillars at the front of the temple. The pillars are priestly pillars, pomegranate trees. Pomegranates are also associated with the land. The spies bring back grapes,... Read more

Seven nations, seven fruits

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

Israel enters a land of Canaanites, seven nations of them, stronger than Israel (Deuteronomy 7:1; Acts 13:19). Taking down seven nations is a sevenfold decreation. But the land also contains seven fruits – wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, honey (Deuteronomy 8:8) – so a new creation awaits once the Canaanites are destroyed. Read more

Eschatology to protology

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

John Paul II points out that Jesus encourages us to penetrate past the boundary of the fall to the state of innocence: In the beginning it was not so. How can we do this? John Paul II suggests that the “redemption of the body” gives us this access. If it were not for the redemption of the body, we’d be hopelessly caught in the historical state of humanity in sin, incapable of reclaiming innocence. Eschatology offers access to protology. Read more

Sex as theistic proof

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

Why is it not good for man to be alone? John Paul II said it was because Adam needed an other in order to realize the relation of mutual self-gift that is the fullness of humanity’s imaging of the Triune life. In the process he suggests a kind of theistic proof from sexual difference. The reality of mutual reciprocity is evident in the body, and in the specific forms of the bodies of male and female: “Exactly through the depth... Read more

Sex and alienation

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

In the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant defines sex as “the mutual use which one human being makes of the sexual organs and faculty of another.” This mutual use aims at pleasure. He acknowledges that in using the sexual organs of another, one is acquiring use of the whole person, since “the person is an absolute unity.” At the same time, sexual intercourse represents a profound alienation: “In this act, a human being makes himself into a thing, which is... Read more

Neo-Manichaeanism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:09 am By Peter Leithart

John Paul II warned in his Letter to Families about the neo-Manichaean perspective that has infected modern views of sex. According to this view “body and spirit are put in radical opposition; the body does not receive life from the spirit, and the spirit does not give life to the body. Man thus ceases to live as a person and a subject. Regardless of all intentions and declarations to the contrary, he becomes merely an object.” This can only lead... Read more

End of ends

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Descartes aimed for an objective science, not the science of the scholastics. And that meant, especially, the deletion of final cause from science: “The entire class of causes which people customarily derive from a thing’s ‘end,’ I judge to be utterly useless in Physics.” “Cause” is reduced to efficient cause. Purposes and ends might be nice for morals and literature. But they are not scientific, not knowledge strictly speaking. Read more

Empire of science

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

Bacon distinguishes three “grades of ambition in mankind.” First, there is the ambition to exert power over one’s native country, but this is a “vulgar and degenerate” ambition. More dignity is evident in “those who labor to extend the power of their country and its dominion among men,” though along with dignity there is of course “covetousness.” The most noble ambition, however, is “to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe,” a... Read more

Losing to find

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

The Vatican II document Gaudium et spes includes this packed summary of Trinitarian and anthropological self-gift: “the Lord Jesus, when he prays to the Father, ‘that all may be one . . . as we are one’ (Jn 17:21-22) and thus offers vistas closed to human reason, indicates a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons and the union of God’s sons in truth and love. This likeness shows that man, who is the only creature on earth... Read more

Eucharistic meditation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:38 pm By Peter Leithart

Ephesians 4:8: When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men. How do we reach maturity in Christ? Paul gives us a clue when he quotes from Psalm 68, a Psalm of ascension. The Psalm begins as a plea for the Lord fight for David. He calls on Yahweh to arise, scatter His enemies, and make them melt like wax before the fire. Yahweh responds. He marches through the desert from... Read more