Doves, Keel argues from comparative ancient evidence, are messengers of love. ”Your eyes are doves,” thus, means that the eyes send inviting messages. Which sparks out in all kinds of directions: The dove is the Spirit, messenger of the Father’s love for His Son, and for us; doves and eyes are associated, so that the dove of the Spirit is sent from the eyes of the Father, the eyes that value us as His beloved; the seven eyes of the... Read more
Love, Andreas Capellanus assures us, improves the lover in every way – it makes him stronger, smarter, more virtuous, better looking. And this isn’t just a conceit of the courtly lover tradition. It’s biblical. The lover in the Song leaps tall mountains in a single bound, just so he can get to his beloved (2:8). And this, in turn, puts a fresh gloss on Paul’s declaration that the love of God, the Spirit, has been poured out in our hearts. Read more
The Shunamite calls herself a lotus; her lover agrees: She is like a “lotus among the thorns” (Song of Songs 2:2) Thorns and thistles grow up from the earth and make it difficult for Adam to produce his bread. Thorns means that he eats only by the sweat of his nose. And there is a parallel between the work of love and the work of the land: Just as Adam will produce bread only by working through the thorns and... Read more
Othmar Keel argues that the Shunamite of the Song of Songs (2:1) identifies herself not with a “modest little flower” but as the “lotus of the plains.” With this, she confidently compares herself with “one of the favorite symbols in the region stretching from Egypt to Syria.” In Egyptian mythology, the “lotus represents the transition from the dark primeval waters to the ordered world. it is a primary symbol of the Egyptian idea of regeneration. At every opportunity, Egyptian gods... Read more
In a review of Robert Solomon’s last book ( True To Our Feelings ), Ronnie de Sousa reflects on gratitude, one of Solomon’s themes. He finds gratitude to any God rather horrifying: “For my part, having long passed the age at which most human beings who have ever lived are dead, I feel gratitude every day for being alive. But if I thought some God was to be thanked for that, as opposed to brute luck, I’d worry about the... Read more
Lakoff and Johnson explain why Aristotle must reduce metaphor to linguistic deviance: Aristotle employs the metaphors “Ideas are Essences” and “Essences are Forms,” and on this basis argues that “things in the world . . . can be directly grasped by the mind. Ideas therefore are aspects of the physical world. It is not possible for one idea to be conceptualized in terms of another. It is not possible for part of the logic of one idea to come from... Read more
At the beginning of Torture and Eucharist: Theology, Politics, and the Body of Christ (Challenges in Contemporary Theology) , William Cavanaugh challenges the distinction between state and civil society that is inherent in much Christian thinking about politics. The two are inseparable, but, Cavanaugh says, it’s in the interests of the modern state to claim otherwise. The ruse goes this way: The state strips away the traditional moorings of society, atomizing society into individuals; this individualized society is then... Read more
Lakoff and Johnson make the striking claim that the notion of free will is implicated in the traditional disembodied conception of reason: “Will is the application of reason to action. Because human reason is disembodied – that is, free of the constraints of the body – will is radically free. Thus, will can override the bodily influence of desires, feelings, and emotions.” Does this work in reverse? Does denial of radically free will, as it occurs in Augustinian theology, imply... Read more
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson ( Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought ) agree with Paul DeMan that metaphors lie at the heart of metaphysical theories. They do not, however, believe that exposing the metaphorical ground of metaphysics destabilizes philosophy. Rather, “conceptual metaphors ground abstract concepts through cross-domain mappings using aspects of our embodied experience and how they establish the inferential structures within philosophies . . . . Metaphors are the very... Read more
1 Peter 4:3-4: For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousals, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they malign you. As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, Peter is engaged in a kind of sociological analysis, distinguishing between two societies, their habits,... Read more
Leithart
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In