New Volume on CDK

A new volume on the work of Charles De Koninck ...https://t.co/PXJslMCWO7

— The Charles De Koninck Project (@The_CDK_Project) August 11, 2023

"Expanded Reason Awards"

The winners of the fifth edition of the Expanded Reason Awards were announced this week. https://t.co/KxxdenT4Tl

— Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) July 9, 2021

The Worst Sort of Ultramontanism

Taking everything written by a reigning Roman pontiff as having value, merely because he wrote it.

+++ Read on La Civiltà Cattolica - English edition a previously unpublished text by fr. Jorge Mario #Bergoglio (1987-88) about the interpretation of reality and how obsolete categories are eventually superseded by reality. Full text: https://t.co/j9hBiBJ0WN

— Antonio Spadaro (@antoniospadaro) April 5, 2021

The Quarrel Over the Subject

The Fallout from the 20th Century Quarrel Over the Subject https://t.co/k6wPRXPmBP. This is very clarifying!

— John Cavadini (@JohnCavadini) March 17, 2021

Did anyone outside of academia care?

The Importance of Logic

This is actually very classical. We forget that "scholastic" style encodes a kind of conversation (disputatio) and that Plato and Aristotle both wrote dialogues (and Aristotle is very dialogical even in his lectures).

"Logic" is social:https://t.co/FfxDFDmxqd

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) November 1, 2020

Eastern Christian Books: Pavel Florensky's Idealism

Eastern Christian Books: Pavel Florensky's Idealism

Angelico: Pavel Florensky, The Meaning of Idealism: The Metaphysics of Genus and Countenance, trans. Boris Jakim

A Manual for Creating Atheists

Friends, @peterboghossian's wildly popular book, “A Manual for Creating Atheists,” outlines his process of “street epistemology,” which is intended to be a process of anti-evangelization.

On the “Word on Fire Show,” Brandon Vogt and I discuss his book: https://t.co/osMY3nkghN pic.twitter.com/OXXDp5Ir2E

— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) September 14, 2020

Edward Slingerland on Chinese Philosophy

"Slingerland takes the bold step here of arguing that we should stop speaking of 'Chinese' philosophy in the first place, as the Chinese of the distant past were grappling with the same philosophical problems that face us today..." @OxUniPress https://t.co/lqcGHX3Fmv

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) August 10, 2020

Etymology as Philosophy

A wonderful figura etymologica. And one with an interesting history... https://t.co/H0oFlNeGCo

— Flavius Clemens Grammaticus (@flaviusclemens) August 6, 2020

the whole thread

Eastern Christian Books: The Crucifixion of Eros: An Interview with Matthew Clemente

Eastern Christian Books: The Crucifixion of Eros: An Interview with Matthew Clemente

It is no secret that Christianity has throughout its history neglected the feminine, feared it, suppressed it, relegated it to the realm of the irrational and untrue. But if we’re being honest, we must admit that the Christ we meet in the Gospels is not a particularly masculine figure. A savior who comes not in power but in weakness, who preaches mercy instead of justice, forgiveness in place of revenge, who measures his wealth not by how much he can possess but how much he can give away, who shows us how to inhabit our vulnerability and be honest about our frailty, whose love is abandonment—that is not a very manly savior. 

What is the agenda here? Why is the interpretive lens being applied to Christian teaching and for what purpose? There is plenty that raises red flags, but I'm not going to catalog them here yet.

For comparison (or contrast?)...
The Redemption of Eros: Philosophical Reflections on Benedict XVI’s First Encyclical by D. C. Schindler

Deus Caritas Est:

According to Friedrich Nietzsche, Christianity had poisoned eros, which for its part, while not completely succumbing, gradually degenerated into vice.[1] Here the German philosopher was expressing a widely-held perception: doesn't the Church, with all her commandments and prohibitions, turn to bitterness the most precious thing in life? Doesn't she blow the whistle just when the joy which is the Creator's gift offers us a happiness which is itself a certain foretaste of the Divine?

See also MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI FOR LENT 2007

Perhaps Clemente would say that his view complements Benedict XVI's. I have doubts about his philosophical and historical premises.

Is the Latin Intellectual Project Over?

NCReg: Why Philosophy is Crucial to Understanding Theology by Father John P. Cush
Philosophy influences people and culture and shines light on the science of theology

If I had to choose between prioritizing philosophy or scripture study for deacons, I'd choose the latter, so that they could then learn theology properly rather than some version of "scriptural theology" that is really just scholastic theology with scripture proof-texts.

Second, political philosophy is important, especially for helping Latins understand the limits of Roman Catholic social teaching and how it has developed over time, but I can't say who should be the recognized authorities on this topic at this time, since most Latin philosophers and theologians tend to save RC social teaching rather than contest it directly.

Thomistic Institute at Stanford

Monday, May 13: A lecture by Fr. Stephen Fields, S.J. (Georgetown University)

The Importance of "Natural Philosophy"

Public Discourse: A Natural Philosopher’s Lament By John G. Brungardt

Olivier-Thomas Venard // Qu'appelle-t-on prier ?

A Poetic Christ: Thomist Reflections on Scripture, Language, and Reality by Olivier-Thomas Venard, O.P.

T&T Clark

The Gospels Manifest a Poetic Christ by Timothy O'Malley


Fr. Venard's Aquinas Lecture for the DSPT in 2016: Life, Language, and Christ: A Thomistic Approach

R. R. Reno on Karl Rahner

A failed attempt at inculturation that made the sources secondary to his theological construct.

After Vatican II, Karl Rahner was everywhere in demand. He knew the doctrinal tradition inside and out. Those trained in accord with the earlier Thomism could put his new approach, “transcendental theology,” into familiar mental slots—post-Kantian anthropology became the foundational philosophy in the place of ­Aristotelian metaphysics, but otherwise the scholastic architecture remained intact. Rahner was in that sense a manualist. New building materials, but the same structure. This accounted, in part, for his postconciliar ­ascendancy.

It seems his star has fallen. During a recent visit to Rome, I briefly ventured back into the classroom, lecturing to seminarians on Rahner’s introductory textbook, Foundations of Christian Faith. During the Q&A, it became clear that the priests-in-training thought Rahner useless. After class one asked, “In the end, wasn’t he a heretic?” I’m no fan of Rahner’s, but I admit to being taken aback by that question!

Rahner was not a heretic. But his theology falters, largely because he assumes that the primary language of faith—Scripture, liturgy, and the ancient creeds—lacks spiritual power. His was a project of translation. He took what he regarded as the dead idioms of the past (“Christ rose from the dead”) and restated them in what he imagined to be the vital idioms of the present (“transcendental hope in the resurrection”). As is too often the case with theologians chasing cultural relevance, his formulations were already out of date when Foundations was published in the mid-1970s.

I’ve read a lot of Karl Rahner and learned a great deal. He opens up the logic of doctrine, often with exquisite dexterity. But his basic project was always doomed. As one of my teachers, George Lindbeck, observed, in good theology, Scripture absorbs the world, not the world Scripture. What the original witnesses to Christ say is always more vivid and radiant with divine truth than any translation into contemporary parlance.

He also talks about the pontificiate of Francis: A Failing Papacy

From 2017: Stephen Brock - "Aquinas and the Life of the Mind"

CWR: Why the Church needs philosophy: On the 20th anniversary of Fides et ratio by Joseph G. Trabbic

The philosophical currents that troubled John Paul II two decades ago and moved him to write Fides et ratio haven’t disappeared. […]

Is Personalism Still in Vogue?

Church Life: The Personalist Awakening in 20th Century Catholic Moral Thought written by Jay Martin

Eastern Christian Books: On Misunderstanding Sacrifice

Eastern Christian Books: On Misunderstanding Sacrifice