Peter J. Leithart

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 »

Scott Swain’s attention to Robert Jenson’s work in The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology is welcome. As Swain points out early on, quoting David Hart, Jenson hasn’t received nearly the attention he deserves, and this is a loss for theology generally and . . . . Continue Reading »

One of the great virtues of Scott Swain’s The God of the Gospel: Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian Theology is his insight into the biblical foundations of Robert Jenson’s Trinitarian theology. He points out that Jenson “argues that the doctrine of the Trinity’s primary . . . . Continue Reading »

The TLS reviewer of John O’Malley’s Trent: What Happened at the Council points out some of the omissions of the Council: “As O’Malley argues, however, what was not discussed is every bit as significant as what captured the delegates’ attention. There was barely a . . . . Continue Reading »

The Old Testament anticipates Jesus not only by continuous foreshadowing but by the pressure of its narrative. Given Israel’s failure and Yahweh’s commitment to His people, incarnation is the obvious, surprising final move . . . . . Continue Reading »

We speak blithely of modernity and the Enlightenment, as if the mere writing of a treatise suddenly changes the way people think. Margaret C. Jacob has spent a good part of her career retracing the conduits by which atomistic and mechanistic conceptions of the universe became part of the common . . . . Continue Reading »

Stratford Caldecott explains the logic of self-giving within the Triune life ( The Radiance of Being: Dimensions of Cosmic Christianity , 110-111): “it is the Father, not the Essence, who gives, but the Father is the Essence, or not -other than the Essence, and what is given also is the . . . . Continue Reading »

In his contribution to John Paul II on Science and Religion: Reflections on the New View from Rome , T.F. Torrance claims that Maxwell’s investigations into field phenomena arose from theology, specifically from a Trinitarian dissatisfaction with Newton’s universe: “Clerk . . . . Continue Reading »