Books Read in 2009

1. Christless Christianity, Michael Horton

2. Twilight of Atheism, Alister McGrath

3. Atheist Delusions, David Bentley Hart

4. Confessions (Confessiones), St. Augustine

5. Alas Babylon, Pat Frank

6. On Being and Essence (De Ente et Essentia), St. Thomas Aquinas

7. Whose Bible Is It, Jaroslav Pelikan

8. St. Thomas Aquinas on Politics and Ethics, ed. Paul Sigmund

9. Against the Academicians (Contra Academicos), St. Augustine

10. The Teacher (De Magistro), St. Augustine

11. The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis

12. Exiles from Eden, Mark Schwehn

13. On Free Choice of the Will (De Libero Arbitrio), St. Augustine

14. The Universe Next Door, James Sire

15. Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), St. Augustine

16. Biblical Theology: A Proposal, Bernard Childs

17. Creation Regained, Albert Wolters

18. In The Ruins of the Church, R.R. Reno

19. Game of Shadows, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams

20. Hope Among the Fragments, Ephraim Radner

21. Meltdown, Thomas Woods

22. The Divine Names, Pseudo-Dionysius

23. The Mystical Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius

24. Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

25. Summa of the Summa, ed. Peter Kreeft

26. The Celestial Heirarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius

27. The Ecclesiastical Heirarchy, Pseudo-Dionysius

28. The Letters, Pseudo-Dionysius

29. The Life of Moses, St. Gregory of Nyssa

30. Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages, Etienne Gilson

31. On the Soul and the Resurrection, St. Gregory of Nyssa

32. The Transforming Vision, J. Richard Middleton and and Brian J. Walsh

33. On God and Christ, St. Gregory of Nazianzus

34. Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be, J. Richard Middleton and Brian J. Walsh

35. Early Christian Doctrines, J.N.D. Kelly

36.  The Idea of a Christian College, Arthur Holmes

37. Guide to Thomas Aquinas, Josef Pieper

38. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

39. After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre

40. Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers, Christopher Hall

41. The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, Jaroslav Pelikan

42. The Peaceable Kingdom, Stanley Hauerwas

43. Greek East and Latin West, Andrew Louth

44. Identity and Difference, Martin Heidegger

45. The Orthodox Church, Timothy Ware

46. The Trial of (St. ) Maximus (the Confessor), Anonymous

47.  The Four Hundred Chapters on Love, St. Maximus the Confessor

48. Introduction to Metaphysics, Martin Heidegger

49. Commentary on Our Father, St. Maximus the Confessor

50. Two Hundred Texts on Knowledge, St. Maximus the Confessor

51. Mystagogy, St. Maximus the Confessor

52. God Without Being, Jean-Luc Marion

53. After Aquinas, Fergus Kerr

54. Exegetical Fallacies, D.A. Carson

55. Christianity and the Postmodern Turn, ed. Myron Penner

56. The Story of Christianity, David Bentley Hart

57. Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

58.  Desire of the Nations, Oliver O’Donovan

59. Geneology of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche

60. On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, St Maximus the Confessor

61. Writings on Philosophy and Language, J.G. Hamann

62. Heidegger’s Atheism, Laurence Paul Hemming

63. In The Aftermath, David Bentley Hart

64. The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Martin Heidegger

65. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Immanuel Kant

66. The Fall of Interpretation, James K.A. Smith

67. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant

68. Doors of the Sea, David Bentley Hart

69. Ironies of Faith, Anthony Esolen

70. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth, Bradley Birzer

71. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Annonymous

72. Life is a Miracle – Wendell Berry

73. Geneology of Nihilism – Connor Cunningham

74. Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization – Anthony Esolen

75. Deep Comedy – Peter Leithart

76. Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dosteovsky

77. Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault – Phillipp Rosemann

78. Inferno – Dante

79.  Whose Justice?  Which Rationality? - Alasdair MacIntyre

80. Solomon Among the Postmoderns – Peter Leithart

81. Living Gently in a Violent World – Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier

82. Twilight of the Idols - Friedrich Nietzsche

83. Crisis of Western Philosophy – Vladimir Soloviev

84. Exploring Reality – John Polkinghorne

85. Being Consumed – William Cavanaugh

Notes from Underground - Fyodor Dosteovsky

Brief Heidegger Post

technology seeks to unconceal the mystery of the world in general and the mystery of Being in particular.  This is why Heidegger contrasts modern technology with poetry, becuase poetry itself merely allows the world to exist in the midst of its mysterious unfolding and unconcealing in the presence of Being and beings.  Through seeking to master beings, not only do we not grasp the truth of Being, which is itself the essence of truth (intro metaphysics “truth is the essence of Being”), but we merely make everything else a tool to be wielded and molded to our own use.  In the modern technological age, not only do we threaten to control the world through technology, but technology itself threatens to control us (see quote in QCT).

This can be seen as a legitimate outgrowth of Philosophy, which has ceased to be true thinking (see Letter on Humanism).  Since Philosophy sought to go away from the mystery of the event of existence and to posit Being into some ethereal realm outside of of any ontical categories, it has given rise to the slow development through Christian thought to the modern turn to the subject seen so pervasively in the thought of Descartes and Kant.  This reason is why the question of Being is so important for our modern times to recover anew through the thought of Parmenides and Heraclitus.  Far from Philosophy being an evolutionary scheme and a fuller realization of Thought, as in Hegel, though the guise of Philosophy has forgotten the original greatness of the Greeks.

Lex Orandi Lex Credendi

I recently read The Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas, the first book of his I have ever read, and was quite pleased with it.  However, I found a quote in there that was a little off track historically, though it does express some truth.  This was from the first edition, and he may have changed his mind, since it was published in 1983, but I did want to comment on it. 

“Because the Christian story is an enacted story, liturgy is probably a much more important resource than are doctrines or creeds for helping us to hear, tell and live the story of God.” from The Peaceable Kingdom by Stanley Hauerwas, p.25.

This is a good point, but ultimately it is a false dichotomy.  The Lex Orandi Lex Credendi nature of the liturgy tells us the content of what we are to believe, therefore they cannot be “acted” against one another.  In other words, the dogmatic content of the faith is encapsulated in the liturgy, so to drive a wedge between them is a false opposition.

Another reflection I had based on the reading of this text:

There is no transcendental ego detatched from who ‘I’ am, where ‘I” have been or where ‘I’ will go.  To posit such a transcendental ego is to separate the “self” from the self and to disconnect the self from the vicissitudes and contingencies of our created-ness.  Therefore the things we do in a real sense help to determine who we are and what we will be. 

We are more than our histories, but we are cet]rtainly not less.  Though our history does not determine the “self” in a deterministic or mechanistic manner, they play an integral role in the development of the “self”.  We cannot know who we are apart from the story of our community, but this does not determine the full context of the ”self”, either. 

We have the responsbility to develop our character through virtuous acts, but we cannot do this without others who are sharing our lives with us in community.  It is only in community with others that we can come to realize who “we” are.  In the Christian context, the “self is centered through the Eucharist” as the Pseudo-Dionysius said in his Ecclesiastical Heirarchy.

Some more reflections:

God is the origin, source and beginning of all beings, yet He is also the telos  and the purpose of which in the apokatastasis of all things, all things will be renewed either by presence or absence of His Light.  Therefore, all of creation points and is directed towards and is ultimately fulfilled in the Triune nature of God.  If God is truly the telos of all things, then we make icons, not to worship the icon, but to worship that which the icon directs our gaze, to that which is wholly beyond our gaze.  All of creation, suspended and mirroring the Divine, is thus iconic of the Divine, and directs our gaze beyond the horizon of being to the Being which is yet wholly beyond all being and beings.  He is the Being beyond being that gives being to beings in their being.

(Polemical and Brief) Thoughts on the Bible

I know next to nothing about the ANE, or even about any of the Targums.  I do know one thing though: whether or not Genesis 1:26 was referring to some royal emissary or not, that is now how the Ecclesial community has understood the passage.  Only wooden, literalistic and slavish followers of the excessive Antiochene tradition in all their Nestorian (other than Chrysostom, of course) glory would care exclusively about the sensus literalis.

This is not to impugn the sensus literalis as such.  When I read Heidegger, I try to understand what he means by differentiating between Being and beings.  Yet the comparison between Heidegger and the Scriptures is merely an analogical one.  We cannot KNOW what the author intended absolutely, nor any of the sources that were being used.  What is the most important thing is how the particular texts have been read in the Church (the famous Semper, Ubique, Ab Omnibus of St Vincent of Lerins).  The Bible must be understood first and foremost as the book of the Church (Wright makes this argument on his book on the Bible, if memory serves me correctly).

Reno on the Task of Theological Interpretation

HT: Sawilowsky

R.R. Reno discussing the inherit theological nature of interpretation.  It is also my contention, along with Reno, that the modern school of biblical interpretation has run its course.  Knowing the histories behind the text is not necessarily the problem; It is when it is disconnected from the life(-giving) of the Church,  and the guild hermetically seals themselves off from “theologians” who are “not equipped to interpret the Bible”.  Anyone interested in Historical Theology would know that until the Enlightenment (many Biblical Scholars castigate the boogey-man Enlightenment, yet are given to the same categories!), the goal of the Pastor/Theologian was multifaceted.

The Fathers did not interpret the Old Testament in its own light, other than say, the Nestorian precursors of the Antiochene school.  They always read it for the theological insight it had pointint to something, that is to Christ and His Church.  The inherit, insipid hubris of the biblical guild is seemingly insurmountable.  Yet, Theological interpretation is making a comeback of sorts.  The Bible is the church’s book.  It must be read and studied for that very purpose.  We cannot abstract ourselves (the Englighenment’s foremost idea!) from this institution and think we can understand the meaning of the Text.

Deep, Deep, Deep Blue Sea

Deep, Deep, Deep Blue Sea,

the chasm of the abyss is surrounding me.

I am drowning,

and no one is coming for me.

Deep, Deep, Deep Blue Sea,

the waves of life are washing me to an infinite nothing.

I long for my own Exodus,

yet you, Oh Sea, will not grant me thus.

It is only you between life and death;

Will no one come for me?

Or is it mere futility?

Aphorism #10

For St. Thomas, God is the only subsistens ens, the self-existing or self-subsistent being (YHWH; see S.T. I.13.11), from whom all other beings receive their very being.  In Him, essence and existence are coterminous, whereas for all other beings, their form is remotely and participatorily in the Divine Mind (see S.T. I.15.1) , and thus our participation in the Divine is a hylomorphic unity in the human person (see S.T. I.44.4)

Aphorism #9

The problem with modernity is that it has inverted the relation of God with the world.  Instead of being actus purus, God is seen as having some sense of potentiality, whether material or eschatological.  However, humans are the ones who are in potentiality and are not able to actualize their essence until they meet the One, who is beyond being, as a stranger in the Eucharist.

In other words, God is pure being and is not able to be changed with the viccisitudes of time or creation.  This is what is meant by actus purus.  However, humans are not pure being and can and do change and thus do not only contain potentiality, but are by the very definition, potentiality.  In other words, we are contingent and God is not.

As for the language of “actualizing the essence”, what I have in mind is that of “becoming a self”, realizing the true and original destiny for human beings through the God-man, being both God and man by our being resurrected with Him (see St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection, Ch. 10).  Through him, we are truly human and therefore truly participate in the true humanity and divinity.  Outside of him, humanity cannot be restored to the original purpose of humanity, and thus all we are able to do is continually wait for Godot’s never-showing.

Augustine on Temporality

“If we can think of some bit of time which cannot be divided into even the smallest of instantaneous moments, that alone is what we call ‘present’.  And this time flies so quickly from the future into the past that it is an interval with no duration.  It if has no duration, it is divisible into past and future.  But the present occupies no space.” (St. Augustine, Confessions XI. xv. 20).

In other words, for St. Augustine the present is all that currently exists.  It is not something that is extended into space, because it must known through our own lived-experience (intentional reference to Husserlian Phenomenology).  Augustine does not imply the past and future have no existence of their own, but that their existence is limited to memory and anticipation, respectively (cf. also Confessions XI. xviii. 24, “..So future events do not yet exist, and if they and if they are not yet present, they do noy yet exist; and if they have no being, they cannot be seen at all”; Confessions XI. xx. 26, “Perhaps it would be exact to say: there are three times, a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things to come (emphasis added) ).  Interestingly, his discussion of memory precedes his discussion of time, so his discussion is the phenomenological experience we have of our world (i.e. the present ontically is all there is, yet we have memory of the past, so it precedes the present ontologically).

Aphorism #8

It is not the job of the modern, liberal nation-state to provide for your every need.  That is the job of the Ekklesia, by means of the sacraments, which is the only place, a veritable locus communis, where true givenness and otherness overcome all boundaries and obstacles.