In ancient Greek, dunamis was potentiality, energeia was power in act. Agamben ( The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans ) thinks that Paul is perfectly aware of the distinction, and actually employs it in Ephesians 3:7 and Philippians 3:21. Faith is the principle of . . . . Continue Reading »
Alain Badiou has made much of Paul’s contribution to Western universalism, which expresses an “indifference with regard to customs and traditions” and “an indifference that tolerates difference” ( Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism , 98-99). Agamben is rightly . . . . Continue Reading »
Agamben ( The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans ) makes an intriguing connection between the Pauline notion of calling and the Marxist theory of class. He takes a clue from the improbable etymology that links the Greek klesis to the Latin classis . Whether that etymology . . . . Continue Reading »
Giorgio Agamben offers an intriguing discussion of the Pauline concept of calling in his The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans . For Paul, calling is always linked with the arrival of the messianic age in Jesus. But this does not, contra Weber, imply an indifference to . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan loved David as himself (1 Samuel 18). Despite the risk to his own status and his future kingship, Jonathan was a good neighbor to David. Because of that love, Jonathan made a covenant with David. First love, then covenant to give form to that love. First one is a good neighbor, and then . . . . Continue Reading »
The title of Anna Whitelock’s The Queen’s Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth’s Court makes is sound like a soap opera about royal lovers. Elizabeth’s regular bedfellows were not male lovers but female attendants. As the TLS reviewer , Helen Hackett, notes, “Sharing . . . . Continue Reading »
Giorgio Agamben notes in the preface to his recent Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty that “The word liturgy (from the Greek leitourgia , ‘public services’) is . . . relatively modern. Before its use was extended progressively, beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, we find . . . . Continue Reading »
Cass Sustein reviews Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir in the latest NYRB . The book focuses not on the reality of scarce resources but rather on the psychology of scarcity - the feeling of scarcity, which, the authors argue, has damaging . . . . Continue Reading »
In his review of Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing , Stephen Greenblatt connects the theme of “nothing” with “noting” and “noting” with eavesdropping, and from there suggests that Shakespeare’s plays have to be understood in the light of . . . . Continue Reading »
In a few places, I think Swain ( The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology ) simply misses the import of what he reads and quotes. At one point (99) he claims that Pannenberg believes that “the events that unfold between the Father and Jesus do not merely reveal who . . . . Continue Reading »
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