Philosophy

Philosopher D. C. Schindler discusses the Christian notion of religious liberty as a synthesis of the Jewish, Roman, and Greek traditions. In the Jewish tradition, one receives a theological understanding of freedom understood as freedom from bondage and from sin in order to more fully enter into a loving covenant with God. In the Roman tradition, freedom exists in relation to one’s membership within a polis and is established through legal codes. This objective political presence is internalized and personalized through the education of virtuous citizens. And in the Greek tradition, freedom is understood in relation to nature, on the one hand through membership in a tribe by kinship, and on the other hand, through participation in the Good, which is at the source of all being. Christianity, argues Schindler, is precisely the “receiving, healing, and transforming [of these] three distinct traditions” and Christian freedom is their “flourishing integration.” $4

Ken Myers and Thomas de Zengotita discuss how the omnipresence of “representations”—forms of communication that have been deliberately manipulated and designed to address you—contributes to the widespread sense of entitlement and partiality for autonomous choice, resulting in what Zengotita calls “the flattered self.” Despite our unprecedented ability to “make ourselves,” the overwhelming flow of images, options, events, and stuff generates feelings of helplessness, apathy, ambiguity, and resignation, all of which are often evasively expressed in the multivalent utterance “Whatever.” $6.

Guests on Volume 132: David I. Smith, on how metaphors assumed by teachers lead them to imagine the vocation of teaching; Susan Felch, on how the metaphors of gardens, building, and feasting can inform the task of education; D. C. Schindler, on philosopher Robert Spaemann's understanding of a teleological nature; Malcolm Guite, on his seven sonnets based on the ancient “O Antiphons” sung traditionally during Advent; J. A. C. Redford, on setting Malcolm Guite’s “O Antiphon” sonnets to music

Guests on Volume 117: Matthew Dickerson, on the likenesses between Beowulf and three of Tolkien’s heroes, and on how (despite Peter Jackson’s rendition) The Lord of the Rings is more interested in virtue than in military exploits; Jennifer Woodruff Tait, on how assumptions about the nature of moral knowledge—derived from the school of common-sense realism—compelled Victorian Methodists and others to substitute grape juice for wine in celebrating the Lord’s Supper; Jeffry Davis and Philip Ryken, on why the liberal arts ought to be recognized as a calling that enriches Christian living; and Robert George, on the consequences of redefining marriage.

Guests on Volume 115: Arlie Russell Hochschild, on how the reliance in personal life on professional consultants establishes market-shaped models for imagining personal identity; Andrew Davison, on why a fully Christian approach to apologetics requires a Christian understanding of reason; Adrian Pabst, on why only a Christian understanding of God and Creation can provide the ground for understanding the order of reality; Gary Colledge, on the centrality of Christian belief to the writings and social concerns of Charles Dickens; Linda Lewis, on how Charles Dickens assumed in his readers a basic Biblical literacy, and so constructed his stories in a sort of conversation with the teaching of Jesus; and Thomas Bergler, on how the Church's captivity to youth culture eclipses concern for (or even a belief in the possibility of) Christian maturity.