Burning nose

Yahweh’s nose burns a lot.  You can’t see it in English translation, but that’s what the Hebrew says whenever Yahweh’s “anger” burns: What’s actually burning is His nose. His nose burns first, though, not at Israel but at Moses.  Exodus 4:14 is . . . . Continue Reading »

Potter and clay

Human beings are clay shaped by the Almighty Potter. So are events.  Isaiah says that long before the events happened the Lord “fashioned-like-a-potter” the Assyrian invasion and devastation of city and country in Israel and Judah (Isaiah 37:26). If the Lord is a potter fashioning . . . . Continue Reading »

Pride, Idolatry Adam

Isaiah 2:12-22 warns of a day when Yahweh will cast down the tall trees and high mountains, the proud men, and the idols.  The passage ends with a warning not to esteem man who has breath in his nose.  This last is often taken as a reference to the frailty and weakness of man, who should . . . . Continue Reading »

Reason in Philosophy

Nietzsche nails the issue in the section of Twilight of the Idols on “reason” in philosophy.  Philosophy kills and mummifies in order to analyze.  Philosophy especially wants to rid itself of the body: “You ask me which of the philosophers’ traits are most . . . . Continue Reading »

Time and substance

Descartes (Second Meditation) considers a piece of wax that, when heated, changes its properties yet remains wax. He concludes that the “wax” must not be accessible to the senses, since sensible properties all change but the wax remains: “what was there in the wax that was so . . . . Continue Reading »

Wrapped Culture

Margaret Visser has done it again. Author of The Rituals of Dinner , and The Geometry of Love: Space, Time, Mystery, and Meaning in an Ordinary Church , she has now added The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude , an anthropological and philosophical study of gratitude, an examination . . . . Continue Reading »

Future

Robert Jenson writes, “In that an eternity is always some union of past and future, every possible eternity will be of one of two broad kinds:  a Persistence of the Beginning, or an Anticipation of the End.  Moreover, essential time is future time.  It is because we face a . . . . Continue Reading »

Dissociation of sensibility

In the December 2009 issue of Poetry , DH Tracy explores the difficulty that contemporary poets have in combining moral passion with aesthetic/sensual interest.  Quotations from poems by Frederick Seidel and Robert Hass lead to this observation: “sensuous experiences run up and down them . . . . Continue Reading »

Facial Theology

Toward the end of The Star of Redemption (Modern Jewish Philosophy and Religion) , Rosenzweig finds the star in the human face: “The basic level is ordered according to the receptive  organs; they are the building blocks, as it were, which together compose the face, the mask, namely . . . . Continue Reading »