Peter J. Leithart

“We need not fear that we have lost our world when we acknowledge the theory-impregnated nature of our understanding,” writes Mark Johnson ( The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason , 204). “‘Things’ outside us talk back to us, and . . . . Continue Reading »

John W. Dixon makes an intriguing argument in a 1998 Anglican Theological Review essay on “Trinitarian anthropology.” He offers a fundamental anthropology rooted in physics and evolutionary biology, and suggests “The human mind and its products are a part of the web of relations. . . . . Continue Reading »

Thomas H. McCall offers some helpful analysis of “Moltmann’s Perichoresis” in a chapter of his Which Trinity? Whose Monotheism? Philosophical and Systematic Theologians on the Metaphysics of Trinitarian Theology , especially in drawing a distinction between “trinitarian . . . . Continue Reading »

What’s the appeal of first-person shooter games? I ask that question because I find no appeal in them. I’m a sitting duck, a target, canon fodder, the guy everyone sneaks up to get an easy kill. Some apparently find it appealing, and Maria Konnikova has an explanation : flow. Taking her . . . . Continue Reading »

Maciej Zieba’s PAPAL ECONOMICS: The Catholic Church on Democratic Capitalism, from Rerum Novarum to Caritas in Veritate is a careful, informative study of Catholic social teaching as embodied in papal encyclicals. Though the book does briefly trace the history of Papal statements on democracy . . . . Continue Reading »

I can agree with much of Jerome Creach ( Violence in Scripture: Interpretation: Resources for the Use of Scripture in the Church ) says about the Bible and violence. Violence is an intrusion into a peaceable world, “a disease that breaks out and spoils everything” (38-39). God intends . . . . Continue Reading »

Rosemann ( Omne ens est aliquid. Introduction a la lecture du ‘systeme’ philosophique de saint Thomas d’Aquin , 200-1) argues that the presence of God to Himself is a presence “sans ombre et sans absence,” that is, total presence without shadow or a dialectical . . . . Continue Reading »

Philipp Rosemann examines what he describes as the “fundamental principle of Thomist ontology” in Omne ens est aliquid. Introduction a la lecture du ‘systeme’ philosophique de saint Thomas d’Aquin. The principle is stated in the title, and stated baldly it is an utter . . . . Continue Reading »

I cannot be the particular individual I am without particular others (parents, teachers, friends, etc.). The others might have been other others (different parents, e.g.) but then I would be a different particular individual. But I cannot be an individual at all without being a particular . . . . Continue Reading »

Zizioulas ( The Eucharistic Communion and the World ) argues that in the thirteenth century, the earlier bonds between Eucharist and church were broken: “With the help of subtle distinctions used by thescholastic theologians of that time, the terms body of Christ, body ofthe Church, and body . . . . Continue Reading »