Eyes like doves

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; . . . . Continue Reading »

Power of love

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

The work of love

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Lily of the valley

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Gratitude and election

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Aristotle and metaphor

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. . . . . Continue Reading »

State and society

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Free will

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 . . . . Continue Reading »

Poets of system

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 . . . . Continue Reading »