A few cool things found floating around the World Wide Web:
3:AM interviews David James on Fichte, Rousseau, and idealism:
‘I think that Fichte’s essential role in the development of German Idealism can nevertheless be identified fairly clearly. Essentially, he sought to explain the unity of reason explicitly in terms of the idea of autonomy in the sense of reason’s independence of anything other than itself, an independence that he explains in terms of its being governed by rules or principles whose source is in each case somehow itself. Whatever one makes of such an undertaking, it opens the way for investigation of a number of issues that I take to be central to German Idealism, such as how human reason might be conceived as a whole whose basic forms share the same essential structure, rather than a collection of disparate parts (e.g. faculties), the extent to which theoretical reason is determined by practical reason in the sense that a practical engagement with others and the world more generally shapes how we think of ourselves and conceive our relations to that which we take to be other than others, and finally how reason can be thought to remain autonomous in the face of that which appears to be wholly independent of it.’
NPR interviews Ben Yagoda on When Pop Broke Up With Jazz:
‘There was a change in popular taste. The soldiers who had come back from World War II didn’t seem to be as interested in the more complex, challenging kind of popular song, the more jazz-based song. Sentimental ballads and, yes, novelty numbers, suddenly was much more appealing.’
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a whole slew of Livestream Bird Cams – the wife and I have been watching the great horned owl since yesterday.
In Nature magazine, two physicists attempt to defend the integrity of physics:
‘This year, debates in physics circles took a worrying turn. Faced with difficulties in applying fundamental theories to the observed Universe, some researchers called for a change in how theoretical physics is done. They began to argue — explicitly — that if a theory is sufficiently elegant and explanatory, it need not be tested experimentally, breaking with centuries of philosophical tradition of defining scientific knowledge as empirical. We disagree. As the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued: a theory must be falsifiable to be scientific.’
Wesley Hill has written two articles on First Things defending the doctrine of divine impassibility, the first
here and the
second one here:
‘Almost three decades ago, theologian Ronald Goetz spoke of the rise of a “new orthodoxy” in Christian thought. He was referring to twentieth-century theology’s enthrallment with the theme of the suffering of God.By the time Goetz wrote, that theme—of God hanging there on the gallows with the innocent sufferer, in the timeless image Elie Wiesel offered in his book Night—had come to dominate many forms of Protestant theology. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had written from a Nazi prison that “only the suffering God can help.” Jürgen Moltmann, in the wake of the revelation of the full extent of the Holocaust, had authored a book called The Crucified God. And figures as diverse as the process theologian Alfred North Whitehead, who characterized God as “the fellow-sufferer who understands,” and the Japanese Lutheran Kazoh Kitamori, who spoke of “the pain of God,” had ushered in a way of thinking about divine majesty and power as God’s ability and will to share in human misery. Across the spectrum, from both pulpits and pews, the “new orthodoxy” came to reign: God suffers in God’s own nature.’
‘Put positively,
because the Christian God is radically transcendent (which “impassibility” gestures toward), therefore God can take human nature to himself without displacing it or destroying it. And because the transcendent God has taken human nature to himself, the suffering which God undergoes in that nature is redemptive, rather than simply passive victimhood and solidarity with us. Because it is
God who suffers in Christ, that suffering is not simply the suffering a fellow-sufferer who understands but is instead the suffering of One who is able to end all suffering by overcoming it in resurrection and ascension and immortality. Paradoxically, perhaps, it is only by affirming impassibility that we can maintain the deepest soteriological import of the suffering God takes on himself in and through the Incarnation.’
‘At a time when Luther studies had drifted into doldrums of a sort, Mannermaa’s arguing that the heart of the Wittenberg theology lay in Luther’s adherence to theosis as an explanation of how God bestows righteousness upon sinners aroused discussion and returned researchers to the central question of the Reformation. The discussion around his ideas has moved beyond his initial ideas, but the stimulus he has given has served the church and scholarship in special ways. We thank the Lord for this friend.’
Marcus Borg, controversial historical Jesus scholar, friend of liberals, enemy of conservatives, also passed away last week as well (a very sad week for theology), and while there have been a number of lovely tributes, here’s
the one that broke the news to me:
‘Very many people who had left the Christian faith have returned to it through Marcus’ evangelism (though he would grimace at my use of the word, I suspect). Marcus was a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ in word and in deed. He understood Jesus (and especially the Resurrection) differently than I do. But the veracity of his faith was clear. And calm. And passionate.’
Theologians, Inc. 