Matthew 18:15: If your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. We often attack egalitarianism around here, and rightly so. God created a complex world, and things are not simply interchangeable with other things. Women are not the same as men, children are not the same as parents; there is always a disparity in the power of rulers and ruled. Efforts to erase those distinctions are attacks on the... Read more
Responding to the quotations from Carlos Eire I posted a few days ago, Steven Wedgeworth points me to this from the Institutes, Book 2, where Calvin describes our bondage to Satan. He’s not talking about the origin of idolatry, but it’s clear that Calvin gives the demons their due: “That man is so enslaved by the yoke of sin, that he cannot of his own nature aim at good either in wish or actual pursuit, has, I think, been sufficiently... Read more
Carlos Eire argues (in John Calvin and Roman Catholicism ) that Calvin develops a secular account of the rise of religion. Unlike Augustine and the Catholic tradition, Calvin locates the source of false religion in the human imagination, and leaves demonic activity completely out of the picture. As an early “armchair ethnologist,” Calvin paved the way for Enlightenment theories of religion: “by observing Catholics as ‘others’ and by objectifying their religion as a purely natural, socially constructed figment of their... Read more
Clement of Alexandria (Pedagogue, 1.6) said: “Just as the will of God is an act and is called the world, so also His intention is the salvation of men and is called the Church.” Read more
George Friedman at www.stratfor.com compares the current crisis to the S&L crisis during the 1980s: “In the 1970s, regulations on savings and loans (S&Ls) had changed. Previously, S&Ls had been limited to lending in the consumer market, primarily in mortgages for homes. But the regulations shifted, and they became allowed to invest more broadly. The assets of these small banks, of which there were thousands, were attractive in that they were a pool of cash available for investment. The S&Ls... Read more
Veli-Matti Karkkainen points out that Philippians 2:9-11 alludes to Isaiah 45:22-23, where Yahweh declares Himself to be the one and only God, before whom “every knee will bow” and by whom “every tongue will swear.” Thus, “for Paul the resurrected and exalted Christ enjoys the same status as the God of Israel.” Read more
Margreta de Grazia’s recent book on Hamlet looks to be a beauty. She claims that modern interpretations (since 1800) have missed the main premise of the play – namely, that Hamlet is dispossessed of his place and realm, and that the entire court agrees with the dispossession. Only in private, or in antic jest, can he say what really troubles him, since, as Edward Coke said, those who are non compos mentis “cannot be cause of his transformation.” De Grazia... Read more
Through Hamann, Luther became a formative influence to modern thought. Beiser writes, “It was Hamann’s mission to defend the spirit of Luther when the Aufklarung threated to destroy it. Hamann never made any disguise of his great debt to Luther, and he explicitly affirmed his wish to see a restoration of his master’s doctrines. There are indeed many Lutheran themes that reappear in Hamann’s writings: the authority of the Bible, the importance of a personal relationship to God, the denial... Read more
Beiser again, commenting on Hamann’s influence in the 19th century: “One devotee of Hamann’s was F. W. J. Schelling, whose Positivephilosophie reflects Hamannian themes. Another avid student of Hamann’s was F. Schlegel, who wrote one of the first appreciative essays on Hamann’s philosophy. Still another admirer was G. W. F. Hegel, who gave a flattering review of the first edition of Hamann’s works. Last but not least, Hamann was a seminal influence upon Soren Kierkegaard, a debt that Kierkegaard readily... Read more
Frederick Beiser ( The Fate of Reason ) laments the obscurity of Hamann in Anglo-American philosophy. His influence on German intellectual history was notable: “Hamann was the father of the Sturm und Drang , the intellectual movement that grew up in Germany during the 1770s in reaction against the Aufklarung . His influence on the Sturm und Drang is beyond dispute, and indeed readily traceable. Hamann was the teacher of Herder; and Herder, in turn, introduced Hamann’s ideas to the... Read more
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