Dante’s three-part epic poem the Divine Comedy, or Commedia, is one of the most influential and dense works of poetic literature in the Western tradition. Building off Homer and Virgil, and influencing the likes of Chaucer, Milton, Blake, and Tennyson, as well as bringing to popular consciousness and form the modern Italian language, Dante’s epic delves into … Continue reading Dante’s Inferno: Understanding Hell
Christianity
Marx’s “On the Jewish Question”
Karl Marx’s essay “On the Jewish Question,” at the face of it, seems like a typical anti-Semitic piece of writing where Marx decried the god of the Jews as the idol of mammon. However, the essay is of political importance as it details several noticeable things about Marx’s political thought. First is his assertion that … Continue reading Marx’s “On the Jewish Question”
Aquinas on Free Will, Sin, and Ethics
Does freedom entail responsibility, punishment, and reward? What is the role of compulsion, will, and choice in human action? St. Thomas Aquinas vigorously defended the reality of free will, not simply because he felt that it was divinely revealed—“He himself made man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his counsel” (Sirach … Continue reading Aquinas on Free Will, Sin, and Ethics
A Tale of Two Resurrections
“With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack begun.” Charles Dickens crafted … Continue reading A Tale of Two Resurrections
Terror, the Sublime, and Catholicism
“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime, that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind … Continue reading Terror, the Sublime, and Catholicism
Aquinas on the Levels of Life and the Soul
Following up on Aquinas’ Ladder of Being, we move into a related concern that the good doctor dealt with in Quaestio Disputata de Anima (Disputed Questions of Life or the Soul).[1] In this particular disputation, Aquinas is dealing with what distinguishes souls. The question at hand, which follows from an earlier disputation in another text … Continue reading Aquinas on the Levels of Life and the Soul
Aquinas and the Ladder of Being
St. Thomas Aquinas is one of the most recognizable names in Christian history and the Christian intellectual tradition. While generally held up as the perennial philosopher in the Catholic tradition, especially among Catholic realists, he is also loved—perhaps begrudgingly—by many in the Protestant world especially the so-called Reformed scholastics. There is also a lot of … Continue reading Aquinas and the Ladder of Being
German Idealism, From Kant to Hegel, Part 4: Friedrich Schelling
While influenced by Kant and Fichte, Schelling deviates from them insofar that he does not start with mind (as Kant and Fichte) but with nature (per Goethe). Therefore, Schelling’s axiomatic foundation is not the mind, the rational (or transcendental) but the natural; nature. The mind, for Schelling, is an outgrowth of the forces of conflict … Continue reading German Idealism, From Kant to Hegel, Part 4: Friedrich Schelling
Augustine’s City of God, XIII: Finale, The “Image of the Trinity”
Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Zizek, and many other continental psychoanalysts have paid homage to the bishop of Hippo for his insight into the human psyche. Indeed, even Sigmund Freud’s triad psyche of the superego, ego, and id is owed directly to Augustine’s tripartite man: memory (superego), intellect (ego), and will (id). More recently David Brooks has … Continue reading Augustine’s City of God, XIII: Finale, The “Image of the Trinity”
Augustine’s City of God, XII: Understanding the “Saeculum”
Another one of Augustine’s great themes that rides through the City of God is the concept of the saeculum.[i] It has been brought to attention of late by scholars like R.A. Markus and historians like Peter Brown, James Wetzel, and Peter Leithart. What is the saeculum, and why is it important to Augustine’s understanding of … Continue reading Augustine’s City of God, XII: Understanding the “Saeculum”
