Postmodernism rightly understood

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

In his Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought , Peter Augustine Lawler says that “Postmodern thought rightly understood is human reflection on the failure of the modern project to eradicate human mystery and misery and to bring history to an end. One form of postmodern thinking is found in the writing of anticommunist dissidents Vaclav Havel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The fall of communism, Havel said, should be understood as a lesson about the resistance of being... Read more

Purpose of creation

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

Eckhart says in his second German sermon that the “whole of Scripture was written” and “God created the whole world and all the orders of angels” so that “God may be born in the soul and the soul be born in God.” He adds: “It is the nature of every grain of corn to become wheat and every precious metal to become gold and all procreation to lead to the procreation of the human race. Therefore a master says that... Read more

Rehabilitating Garrigou

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

It was inevitable, I suppose, that someone would work to rehabilitate the reputation of Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, perhaps the most prominent neo-Thomist assaulted by the nouvelle theologie . Aidan Nichols does a fine job of it in his lucid Reason with Piety, Garrigou-Lagrange in the Service of Catholic Thought , but Nichols’ quite objective account pretty much confirms everything one had picked up from de Lubac. The problems are neatly illustrated by Nichols’ summary of Garrigou’s Trinitarian theology. (more…) Read more

Creation and Contraction

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:51 pm By Peter Leithart

Marcus Pound ( Zizek: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Interventions) ) summarizes the Kabbalist account of creation that he finds analogous to the move of “withdrawal” that Zizek thinks is fundamental to Schelling, German Idealism, even, in a different register, Descartes: “Kabbalists who sought to maintain the absolute difference between the fallen world and God, while avoiding also a Gnostic rejection of the material world, gave expression to creatio ex nihilo as radical separation or tzimtsum , meaning ‘contraction’ or ‘constriction.’... Read more

Principles of philosophy

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

“The principles of philosophy are certain truths within the immediate ken of every human person,” writes Ralph McInerny ( Praeambula Fidei: Thomism And the God of the Philosophers ). His first example: “Who could fail to grasp being, since it is grasped in anything we conceive?” Who indeed? Well, practically everyone. When a normal person “grasps” something conceptually, he typically thinks he’s grasping the thing . If I think about teapots, my thoughts are occupied with the specifics of teapots.... Read more

Capitalism as cultural system, 2

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Weston Hicks responds to my post on Joyce Appleby’s book on the history of capitalism: “The state used to be a tool of the powerful to entrench themselves and press their advantage, but Christendom transformed it into an arbiter of fair play, unleashing the dominion-taking potential of everyone instead of only the entrenched. “In turn, it also transformed dominion-taking itself, from oppressive to service-oriented. Now that everyone’s endeavor is in constant danger of being surpassed by someone else’s, bosses must serve employees rather than coerce them. Power is now, by... Read more

Primacy of the intellect

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

When Reformed thinkers reject the “primacy of the intellect” that is often endorsed by the Reformed tradition, they are rejecting the primacy of discursive reason and the “laws” of logic. That is not what John means when he announces the eternal Logos. But what if intellect meant, instead, something closer to the medieval notion. For Eckhart, “the intellect as such is open to become all things and not this or that specifically determined being.” Because the intellect can be indwelt... Read more

Capitalism as cultural system

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Joyce Appleby begins her The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism with a discussion of the definition of her subject. Is capitalism an expression of a basic, immutable human nature (Smith: everyone exerts “uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort . . . to better his condition”)? Is it exploitation, the seizure of the means of production from farmers by the new lords of production, and the confinement of the rest to the status of wage laborers (Marx)? Neither. Following Weber more... Read more

Radiance

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

In the tabernacle system, oil is used for light on the golden menorah . The priest receives aromatic oil that spread fragrance. Cakes and breads baked or spread with oil become a sweet savor, soothing the heated nose of Yahweh. In both cases, oil bestows radiant power. In the Bible, Christs – anointed ones – create a field of radiance around them, a field of light or the aroma of a good name. Read more

Living House

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm By Peter Leithart

No human being gets anointed in Genesis; only pillars (Gen 28:18; 35:14). The pillars represent the “house” of Yahweh, the cornerstones of the future temple. It’s not until Exodus 29 that we read of a human being anointed with oil. Aaron is the first Christ. He is also Bethel, the gate of God, the living house of Yahweh. Read more