Peter J. Leithart

Thomas says that “excellence of mind is proportionate to fineness of touch” rather than sight.  Why?  ”In the first place touch is the basis of sensitivity as a whole; for obviously the organ of touch pervades the whole body, so that the organ of each of the other senses . . . . Continue Reading »

Angel F. Mendez Montoya’s The Theology of Food: Eating and the Eucharist (Illuminations: Theory & Religion) is an explosive little book.  His “alimentary theology” is not just a theology of food; like Jeremy Begbie’s “theology with music,” Mendez Montoya . . . . Continue Reading »

Carolyn Korsmeyer ( Making Sense of Taste: Food and Philosophy ) questions the traditional hierarchy of the senses that places vision and hearing at the top of the heap.  Why do they come out on top?  Korsmeyer says that the issue is distance; distance keeps the thing perceived (seen, . . . . Continue Reading »

Lisa Heldke writes, “For theories like Descartes’ [which] conceive of my body as an external appendage to my mind, and see its role in inquiry as merely to provide a set of (fairly reliable) sensory data on which my reasoning faculty then operates to produce objects of knowledge. . . . . Continue Reading »

Kereszty acknowledges that recent theologians have objected to the “reification” of Christ’s presence in some scholastic theology: “They insist that the sacraments are a personal encounter between human beings and Jesus Christ himself.”  Talk of a change in the . . . . Continue Reading »

Listen to the first four minutes of the first movement (Andante grave) of Prokofiev’s Cello Sonata in C Major, and ask yourself: Woudln’t you be content if these four minutes summed up the story of your life? . . . . Continue Reading »

In his Wedding Feast of the Lamb , Roch Kereszty briefly summarizes some of the ways that the Eucharist degenerated in the late medieval period: “Instead of stressing the building up of Christ’s body the church as the ultimate effect of the Eucharist, the Late Middle Ages saw the . . . . Continue Reading »

Faustus complained that arguments from prophecy led only to vicious circles.  ”Believe in Jesus because of the prophets, he imagines a Christian telling a pagan.  ”I don’t believe the Hebrew prophets,” the pagan replies.  ”But Jesus endorses the Hebrew . . . . Continue Reading »

Following the lead of Natalie Zemon Davis, Mack Holt writes that the French “Wars of Religion” were truly religious wars, but then adds that “religion” has to be understood in a sixteenth century sense.  He denies that “three generations of French men and women . . . . Continue Reading »

Weber argued that “Most, though not all, canonical sacred collections became officially established against secular or religiously offensive augmentations as a consequence of a struggle between various competing groups and prophecies for the control of the community.”  Christianity . . . . Continue Reading »