I read the beginning and end of the latter, which is a distillation of the former. Just these notes: The author is a fan of Paul; he’s critical of Luke’s reliability and Timothy’s performance as a leader. I read the beginning and end because I think that these are the parts of Paul’s life … [Read more…]
My favorite points from it: Be thankful for our fellow Christians, that we are not physically alone in our faith. Those psalms that we feel we should not pray for ourselves, we can pray through Christ (for example, the imprecatory psalms, or those claiming innocence). Oetinger arranged psalms “according to the seven petitions of the … [Read more…]
I found this book to be uneven: Some parts seemed to me to be unpersuasive and/or insufficiently rigorous, but there were some good parts, too. The book doesn’t really critique other religions in great detail, but it does do so to a degree. Page 190 n.5 is a good statement of Islam’s narrow origins and … [Read more…]
The recording of the book was okay, but I felt no need to read the actual text. It’s a straightforward and sympathetic biography; St. Augustine was not antisex, etc. The book is not too doctrinally complicated; it does discuss the dispute with Pelagius.
This biography is short and straightforward but not dumbed down. The author is an emeritus professor of history at Notre Dame. I have to admit that, while I am a great fan of Pascal’s, after reading this biography of him I feel no need to read a more detailed one. Pascal was indeed a remarkable … [Read more…]
“St. Thomas did not reconcile Christ to Aristotle; he reconciled Aristotle to Christ.” (28) Chesterton sees Aquinas as a very practical thinker: commonsensical rather than abstract-to-the-extreme as more modern thinkers are. Chesterton is also critical of both Augustine and Luther to an extent. Nothing wrong with the flesh: That’s part of who we are.
Some notes: (1) At the beginning, he makes the point (that I also make elsewhere on this site) that it actually made good sense for God to want to have His words written down. (2) He argues toward the end that faith determines Heaven or Hell, but works determine the level in either.
Some notes: (1) The gods don’t love people (or create them). (2) The gods are less than our God in many way: power, character, etc. (and they, too, were created). (3) Mythology is more ahistorical. (4) There is more misogyny in mythology. (5) The gods are personifications, so asking, “Do you believe in Venus” is … [Read more…]
Just a couple of notes: (1) The first part of his “Psalms’ (115-17) — on what we have in common with (and how we differ from) the Greeks and Romans versus the Hebrews — is great. (2) It’s thought-provoking that he thinks Jesus got some genes from Mary (121).
The question of predestination is one of an intricacy disproportionate to its interest, to paraphrase Chief Justice John Marshall, or at least its relevance to us on earth in leading our lives (interesting phrase, by the way: leading a life instead of, say, living it). What I mean is that we cannot be so sure … [Read more…]