[From Facebook:]

Damn! Augustine (for the 5001st time) is a freaking *genius*!

(With points to MRB for pointing me toward noticing how Augustine explains that the immaterial quality of divine nature allows the common operation of the Triune Persons, or the state of divine unity, that would otherwise be inexplicable.)

There's a welcome sound of rain falling outside right now, and has been for nearly an hour. The wind even picked up to a more stormy level a few minutes ago. Illinois has been in drought for over a month, the southern part of the state - Ooo! Thunder! - having it even worse, and so this couldn't be more timely. I don't know if this will conjure ( Read more... )

After my grading was completed, I relaxed by starting to re-read the marvelous mayhem of Charles William's 1930 debut novel, his contemporary Holy Graal quest, War In Heaven. This kept me occupied on and off as I finished work and errands in New Orleans through to my first night at Jim and Leslie's to kick off my Christmas holiday. I ran into ( Read more... )

An idea for future development: I'm reading chs. 9-10 in Ratzinger's Jesus of Nazareth right now in preparation for class tomorrow. In ch. 9, he's talking about the texts of Peter's confession of Jesus as Messiah/Christ and the Transfiguration, and the connected texts in the gospels about Jesus' prediction of the Passion, with Ratzinger mentioning ( Read more... )

As usual, being a teacher of undergraduate Theology, I was curious to read an article that dealt with the conversations of an introductory sort to questions of the rationality of faith. A sort of conference or public event held in Rome on the topic brought together thinkers from a number of different fields, who presented some classic thoughts on ( Read more... )

At long last, I just finished my article on Karl Rahner and Thomas Aquinas on the necessity of the Second Person of the Trinity becoming incarnate. I had originally thought to get this article out in the spring with the article on the Odes of Solomon. But once I opened the material back up, I realized that there was a considerable amount to think ( Read more... )

I have a thing for Freedom. I'm not talking about a desire for freedom, or a fixation upon it. I simply mean that freedom - as a subject, an intellectual concept - is a topic to which I find myself returning frequently ( Read more... )

In a bit of a brain daze today with regard to the dissertation, so I'm going to finish up a couple of older papers as articles and send them off to journals. "The Odes of Solomon: From Apocalypticism to Merkabah Mysticism" is pretty straightforward and needing little editing, comparatively, before sending it off. Mercifully, the journal I'm ( Read more... )

I've been thinking a lot about love lately. Not being "in love," whether in fiction or (alas!) in fact, and not in any of the usual ways in which we speak about love. There was a conference notice I was mailed a few months ago that quite caught my imagination, and I've not been able to get it out of my head. Syracuse University is sponsoring ( Read more... )

I found myself a bit lost in time and space over the past several days. Last week, after typing up the story about the night on the lake with Becky, I had a long phone call with an old friend/girlfriend from my undergraduate days that hit me on so many levels that I found myself musing on one aspect or another of the conversation through the rest ( Read more... )