Here’s an interesting remembrance of Mortimer Adler and his late conversion to Roman Catholicism by a blogger who knew him and worked with him. Neat stuff.
Monthly Archives: January 2009
The Shack
I have not read The Shack, but I was struck by this bit from Patrick Hannigan’s review:
That said, I can’t give “The Shack” an unconditional recommendation because its craftsmanship is inconsistent and its narrow focus on healing by any means necessary leaves significant minorities of readers either adrift or trying to connect dots that aren’t there. I am a fan of the Lord of the Rings movies, and this novel’s relationship to the gospel reminded me of Gollum’s relationship to Frodo, which pinballed between dysfunction and treachery on the one hand and surprising helpfulness on the other.
Ouch.
An Introduction to Philosophy, by Jacques Maritain
I’ve been working through this volume, little by little, for quite some time now, and I finally finished during my lunch break today. I say “finished”; what I mean is, I’ve read the whole book. I’ve no doubt that I’ll return to it again in the future, as I certainly haven’t absorbed all Maritain has to say.
Maritain’s book is, as the title suggests, an introduction to philosophy; but the book is by no means a survey of the history of philosophical thought.
Maritain was a follower of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, and this is an introduction done from an explicitly Thomistic point of view. It is, in fact, an introduction to Thomism; other schools of philosophy (other than the Greek predecessors of Plato and Aristotle, who are described in some detail) are mentioned only in discussions of the errors avoided by Aristotle and Aquinas.
If you’re looking for a broad overview of philosophical thought, consequently, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, reading such a broad overview is often like reading a movie review by a reviewer who doesn’t reveal his biases. For my money, give me an author who tells me what he thinks is true, and why he thinks it is true. I might not agree with him, but I’ll learn more from him that way. Maritain is this kind of author.
And, of course, as my current goal is to learn more about Thomism, this is exactly the kind of book I was looking for.
Next up is a book recommended by the no-longer-anonymous James Chastek at Just Thomism, Foundations of Thomistic Philosophy, by A.D. Sertillanges, OP. The book is out-of-print, but I managed to find a copy at Amazon.
Speaking of which, another advantage of the Kindle: I was able to buy a nice Kindle edition of the Blackfriars translation of the Summa Theologiae for just a few books; the print edition is five big volumes and costs around $150, if I recall correctly. I can carry my copy around with me in its entirety–and it’s searchable. Woohoo!
What did He know, and when did He know it
Some exegetes are fond of playing the game “What did Jesus know, and when did He know it.” One place I’ve often seen this is Mark 7:24–30, in which a non-Jewish woman comes to Jesus asking for help for her daughter. Jesus explains that he has been sent to the Jews and asks, shockingly, if he should throw what is holy to dogs? The woman says that even dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table, after which Jesus commends her for her faith, and does what she asks.
Some exegetes take this as a learning experience for Jesus. He thought he was called only to the Jews; but here a foreign woman talks him around, and shows him something new. Now, this is clearly nonsense. Jesus is the Son of God–the Second Person of the Trinity–incarnate. He knew very clearly who he was, and what he was doing. God is the grand author, whose manuscript is history, and I think it’s fair to say that He staged the whole incident for our benefit.
The Fifth Joyful Mystery is the occasion when Jesus, as a young lad of twelve, goes missing for three days and is found, finally, in the Temple, bemusing the priests and scribes with his precocity. And personally, I’ve always found “mystery” to be the right tag. Why was it, alone of the incidents of Jesus’ youth, included in the Gospel? I think I’ve got a piece of the answer, and it has to do with the matter I mentioned above, and with today’s feast day, that of Mary, Mother of God.
Today’s feast was instituted as the result of a controversy in the early church. Mary had long been called the “Mother of God”; but Nestorius said that this title was invalid: Mary, a human being, could not possibly be the mother of the Second Person of the Trinity. Eventually this was resolved by a doctrined called, impressively, the Hypostatic Union: that Jesus Christ was one person possessed of two natures: a fully divine nature, that of the Second Person of the Trinity, and a fully human nature. The key phrase here is “one person”. Mary was undeniably the mother of Jesus’ human nature; and as Jesus is one person, fully God and fully Man, it is reasonable to call here the Mother of God.
In short, Jesus is not simply a good man, touch in some special way by the Diety. Nor was Jesus’ body a sort of mask worn by God. Jesus is God Incarnate, true God and true Man. And that’s why it makes no sense to play the game of “What did Jesus know and when did He know it?” He was God. As an adult, He knew certainly knew what he was about. But on the other hand, surely His human nature was capable of learning, and indeed needed to learn? In his human nature, he surely wasn’t possessed of the secrets of the universe as an infant lying in a manger. In human terms, he certainly did need to come to terms with who He was, to grow into Himself, as it were.
And this is precisely the importance of the day when Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, and He asked them, in wonder, “Did you not know that I would be in my Father’s house?” It was obvious to Him; the surprise was (and this shows His humanity) that it wasn’t obvious to Mary and Joseph. Even then, as a boy of twelve, He knew His Father in heaven, and was about His Father’s work.
The View from the Foothills 