Two witnesses come to the city to breath fire, shut up the heavens, turn water to blood, bring plagues (Revelation 11). The people of the city kill them. What lies on the street is “their body” ( ptoma , v. 8) and that’s what the peoples and tribes and nations gaze at (v. 9). Two . . . . Continue Reading »
Christ’s Passion, Thomas says ( ST III, 48, 3), doesn’t seem to be a sacrifice: “human flesh was never offered up in the sacrifices of the Old Law” and were indeed condemned (citing Psalm 105:38). Thomas replies by emphasizing the figural character of the Old Covenant. . . . . Continue Reading »
How, Thomas asks ( ST , III, 48, 1), can Christ earn salvation for other people? He answers by reference to the totus Christus : “Grace was bestowed upon Christ, not only as an individual, but inasmuch as He is the Head of the Church, so that it might overflow into His members; and therefore . . . . Continue Reading »
A charming video made by my son Christian and some friends. http://vimeo.com/48214943 . . . . Continue Reading »
Next door at First Things , I suggest that Shakespeare understood that Lenten penitence leads to final joy. . . . . Continue Reading »
The Torah never mentions breasts as an object of erotic fascination; they are solely nourishment for infants. In the wisdom literature, things are different. Solomon encourages young men to delight in the breasts of their wives - not of another, a strange woman (Proverbs 5) -, and in the Song . . . . Continue Reading »
Solomon describes the beauty of his beloved in a neat and symmetrical poem in Song of Songs 7:1-6. Framed by “how beautiful you are” (vv. 1, 6), the poem describes ten features of her body. He starts with her feet and his gaze makes its way up. The ten features are neatly divided into . . . . Continue Reading »
The old adage applies in spades to the covers of Pride and Prejudice sampled in the NYTBR . Don’t judge the book by any of these covers, especially the Lady Godiva, the Twilight knock-off, and the “smokin’ bad boy Darcy” ones. . . . . Continue Reading »
Technology promises to accomplish the same things that have always been done more efficiently. Borgmann is skeptical ( Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry ) (45-46), and he summarizes George Sturt’s The Wheelwright’s Shop (Craftsman) to explain the . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Technology and the Character of Contemporary Life: A Philosophical Inquiry , Albert Borgmann makes a crucial distinction between a technical device and its machinery. This is “a specific instance of the means-ends distinction” (43), the machinery being the means by which the . . . . Continue Reading »
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