18 Jul 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Everyone knows that Martin Luther hated reason and thereby destroyed Europe, culture, kittens, and organic farming. After all, he once called "holy reason" a "mangy, leprous whore." Again, "reason is the devil’s prostitute and can do nothing else but slander and dishonor what God does and says." So,...
Read more → 08 Jul 2017
Posted by Andrew Fulford and Peter Escalante 
Since Jay Adams and no doubt earlier, the Christian world has been arguing amongst itself over the relationship between its faith and the modern science of psychology. And this is not only a disciplinary division issue, for the modern field of inquiry has experienced a history of its own, with influential...
Read more → 14 Jun 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
I frequently make fun of “aesthetics.” I do so because the way in which the term is used in common parlance at the present hour is silly, and serves roughly as a synonym for “something that gives me the feels.” This is the refuge of not a few Tiber-jumpers. Some Protestants, on the other hand,...
Read more → 30 May 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
After asserting that man's physiology bears witness to the three kinds of "worlds" that exist and the kinds of knowledge that correspond to them, Zanchi notes that natural philosophy is useful for two of them (the lower and the middle), he adds--in reliance on the Platonici--that there are three kinds...
Read more → 11 May 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In today's installment from his prolegomena to Aristotle's Physica, Zanchi again explains man as microcosm, which he now refers to as "smaller world" (minorem mundum,) in different terms--the terms of human physiology--in a way that will presumably strike most modern readers as passing strange. I leave...
Read more → 08 May 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the next installment, Zanchi notes that the kind of natural philosophy he has in view ranks second only to the Word in helping us to learn the things that we need to know about nature, God, and ourselves (more on this in a moment). Zanchi here invokes the Platonist hierarchical schema to describe...
Read more → 08 May 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
It's been a while, but we now return to Zanchi's prolegomena to Aristotle's Physica, in which Zanchi discusses his views of philosophy in general and of natural philosophy in particular. At the end of the previous installment, we saw Zanchi's conclusion that the study of philosophy is eminently appropriate...
Read more → 05 May 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the final edition of the Loci communes (1559), Philip Melanchthon provides a good example of how to move from a philosophical to a theological definition of God. Melanchthon had added a section de Deo, missing in the first edition, to later editions of the Loci, but the passage below is not found...
Read more → 06 Mar 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
At long last, we continue with Zanchi's remarks on the history of philosophy in the prolegomena to his edition of Aristotle's Physica. In the previous installment, Zanchi claimed that it we had Solomon's philosophy books, we wouldn't need Aristotle. But--alas!--we don't, and he wants to be clear about...
Read more → 21 Feb 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In this installment, Zanchi continues his exposition of the spread of philosophy after its initial revelation to Adam. Philosophy, according to Zanchi, comes to the Hebrews eventually, but not directly. It rather goes from Adam's direct descendants to Noah and his sons after the Flood, and proceeds to various...
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