"over the two millennia of the Catholic Church's existence, she has defined the meaning of some ten or twelve texts."
Francis Martin, "Mary in sacred scripture: an ecumenical reflection," The Thomist 72, no. 4 (October 2008): 554n61. Cited is Maurice Gilbert, "Textes bibliques dont l'Église a défini le sens," in L'autorité de l'Écriture, ed. Jean-Michel Poffet (Paris: Cerf, 2002).
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sterne on the Shandean mode of argument
"many an undertaking critick would have built two stories higher upon worse foundations."
Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., V.3 (Penguin ed. ed. Melvin & Joan New (2003), 320; GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 390).
Laurence Sterne, The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gent., V.3 (Penguin ed. ed. Melvin & Joan New (2003), 320; GBWW, 1st ed., 1952, vol. 36, p. 390).
Grafton on the new medium of print
"The Evangelical demand for literal reading of Scripture was dangerous enough in itself. . . . [But] These dangers were magnified thousands of times . . . by the new medium of print, which Tyndale, like Luther, greatly prized and deftly used. Debates on small points, instead of being settled by conversation, turned into mortal combat simply because scholars conducted them in print. The new medium, cold, distant and precise, enabled writers to excerpt, anatomize and mutilate their opponents' words, paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, using all the textual violence they could devise."
Anthony Grafton, "Violence in words: the damage caused by both destroying texts and by imprisoning ideas in chains of paper," Times literary supplement no. 5495 (July 25, 2008): 4-5. I'm not sure I follow this. No writers before the age of print "excerpt[ed], anatomize[d] and mutilate[d] their opponents' words, paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, using all the textual violence they could devise"?
Anthony Grafton, "Violence in words: the damage caused by both destroying texts and by imprisoning ideas in chains of paper," Times literary supplement no. 5495 (July 25, 2008): 4-5. I'm not sure I follow this. No writers before the age of print "excerpt[ed], anatomize[d] and mutilate[d] their opponents' words, paragraph by paragraph and sentence by sentence, using all the textual violence they could devise"?
Yes, but what if you aren't a national depository, have very limited funds, and must therefore choose?
"As a national depository, Cambridge University Library was entitled to a copy of every book published. Nevertheless, it disdained to collect items deemed beneath its dignity, and thereby refused books by Austen, Byron, Shelley, and Wordsworth."
Timothy Larsen, "Reading habits," Books and culture 14, no. 5 (September/October 2008): 34, and here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/sepoct/17.34.html.
Timothy Larsen, "Reading habits," Books and culture 14, no. 5 (September/October 2008): 34, and here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2008/sepoct/17.34.html.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Seaford on our hostility to limit
"Among the ancient Greeks there is what I call a culture of limit. By contrast, our culture is characterized by hostility to closure (limit) in various spheres: economic, metaphysical, conceptual, narrative, and others.
"This opposition is related to an opposition in basic forms of life. For the Greeks, the realm of freedom (economic and ethical) was stable self-sufficiency; and this determined the manner in which they . . . reacted to the unlimitedness of money. But we react to it in a manner determined by the fact that for us the realm of freedom is constant exchange. . . . The same is true of the modern theoretical hostility to metaphysics, the postmodern fetishization of fragmentation, depthlessness, and indeterminacy, and its sublimation of the universe of free-floating images. . . .
"the Greek culture of the limit provides a place that allows us to see the oddness, the historical contingency of the lethally limiting unlimitedness in our economy, social practices, and theory. Hellenism is one of a number of precious resources--a way of being, understanding and perceiving--that can help to liberate us from the homogenized sensibility of our hyper-monetized, atomized, and self-destructive culture of the unlimited."
Richard Seaford, "World without limits: the Greek discovery that man could never be too rich" [Presidential address to the Classical Association, Glasgow, 2009], Times literary supplement no. 5542 (June 19, 2009): 15. "one of a number of precious resources" indeed. It was because I had just read "The usury prohibition and natural law: a reappraisal," by Christopher A. Franks (The Thomist 72, no. 4 (October 2008): 625-660), which is very fine, but which draws upon the sublimation of Aristotle by Aquinas, that this caught my eye and sounded so familiar.
"This opposition is related to an opposition in basic forms of life. For the Greeks, the realm of freedom (economic and ethical) was stable self-sufficiency; and this determined the manner in which they . . . reacted to the unlimitedness of money. But we react to it in a manner determined by the fact that for us the realm of freedom is constant exchange. . . . The same is true of the modern theoretical hostility to metaphysics, the postmodern fetishization of fragmentation, depthlessness, and indeterminacy, and its sublimation of the universe of free-floating images. . . .
"the Greek culture of the limit provides a place that allows us to see the oddness, the historical contingency of the lethally limiting unlimitedness in our economy, social practices, and theory. Hellenism is one of a number of precious resources--a way of being, understanding and perceiving--that can help to liberate us from the homogenized sensibility of our hyper-monetized, atomized, and self-destructive culture of the unlimited."
Richard Seaford, "World without limits: the Greek discovery that man could never be too rich" [Presidential address to the Classical Association, Glasgow, 2009], Times literary supplement no. 5542 (June 19, 2009): 15. "one of a number of precious resources" indeed. It was because I had just read "The usury prohibition and natural law: a reappraisal," by Christopher A. Franks (The Thomist 72, no. 4 (October 2008): 625-660), which is very fine, but which draws upon the sublimation of Aristotle by Aquinas, that this caught my eye and sounded so familiar.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Weinandy contra mundum
"only an impassible God, and not a passible God, is truly and fully personal, absolutely and utterly loving, and thoroughly capable of interacting with human persons in time and history."
Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap., Does God suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 37-38.
Thomas G. Weinandy, O.F.M., Cap., Does God suffer? (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), 37-38.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Tanner on the divine concursus
"it makes as much sense to deny there are created powers and efficacy because God brings about all that is, as to deny there is a creation because there is a creator. It makes no sense at all, for the same reason in both cases--one would be denying the existence of an effect because of the existence of a cause."
Kathryn Tanner, God and creation in Christian theology: tyrrany or empowerment? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 86. First sentence is spot on; second sentence doesn't by itself make it sufficiently clear that in the first we are talking about a "cause" unlike any other, and utterly transcendent (though Tanner does this often enough elsewhere).
Kathryn Tanner, God and creation in Christian theology: tyrrany or empowerment? (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 86. First sentence is spot on; second sentence doesn't by itself make it sufficiently clear that in the first we are talking about a "cause" unlike any other, and utterly transcendent (though Tanner does this often enough elsewhere).
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