The Calvinist International
In working through the text of Luther’s disputation against scholastic theology, I ran across an intriguing series of claims. It appears in the introduction of the text as it appears in the English edition of Luther’s Works. The introduction is attempting to set up the context for Luther’s engagement with “scholastic” theology, and proceeds to […]
Horace, Odes 1.14, is a notoriously difficult poem to interpret. It is universally agreed that it is an allegory, but there is no consensus as to what it is an allegory of, and this points up the problems of allegorical writing and reading in general. First, the poem, in Latin and in English: O navis, referent in […]
In his Politca, Althusius says the following about the ruler: The ruler, prefect, or chief directs and governs the functions of the social life for the utility of the subjects individually and collectively … Petrus Gregorius says that just as the soul presides over the other members in the human body, directs and governs them according […]
We draw near to God spiritually (God is spirit, after all); or so says Thomas. In ST I, Q. 3, Art. 1, Aquinas raises the following as the fifth objection to the question “Whether God is a body?”: Objection 5. Further, only bodies or things corporeal can be a local term “wherefrom” or “whereto.” But in the […]
In the first poem of the Heroides, a collection of love elegies in the form of letters (mostly) from mythical heroines to their absent lovers, Ovid has Penelope say to Odysseus: Res est solliciti plena timoris amor (“Love is a thing full of anxious fear”), as he plays on the similarity in sound and difference in meaning between […]
Part I: On Property Rights—Subjective and Objective, Human and Natural A. Private Property, Law, and Human Rights 1. The background of the debate A couple of weeks ago, in response to an interesting interchange between the Catholic bloggers Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (or PEG) and Elizabeth Bruenig on the subject of private property, natural rights, and positive […]
Disclosure: I was given a free review copy of this book by the publisher. Over four centuries ago, one of the greatest Reformed minds wrote about the gifts of the pagans: For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? … Shall we say […]