Jean Leclercq on The Love of Learning and Desire for God

I have begun to read Jean Leclercq's The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (Fordham University Press, 1961; reprinted in 2009).  The book is a delight, and a treasure of insight into aspects of the middle ages.  Here is Leclercq on how a monk of this era might look at nature, how they would "see" nature.  Note how the world is viewed through biblical/theological categories:

"Of course, these men admire nature; they praise the beauty of a spot which they sometimes say 'delights' them.  A founder of a monastery would choose a site because of its pleasantness: loci iucunditas; a hermit will prefer for his retreat 'a beautiful forest.'  But their admiration is not aroused, as ours is, by the picturesque.  The pleasurable aspect they appreciate is more moral than material: a beautiful forest is above all a forest suited to the solitary life; a 'Beaulieu' is a place which has been made fertile.  And since eschatology never loses its rights, every garden where spiritual delights are found recalls Paradise and is described in the lush images which, in the Bible, depicted the garden of the Spouse or of the first Adam.  The cloister is a 'true paradise,' and the surrounding countryside shares in its dignity.  Nature 'in the raw,' unembellished by work of art, inspires the learned man with a sort of horror: the abysses and peaks which we like to gaze at are to him an occasion of fear.  A wild spot, not hallowed by prayer and asceticism and not the scene of any spiritual life, is, as it were in the state of original sin.  But once it has become fertile and purposeful, it takes on the utmost significance." (p. 130)

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Published: 05 July 2011 05 July 2011

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Gospel and the Mind Interview/Video

Crossway, the publisher of my book, The Gospel and the Mind: Recovering and Shaping the Intellectual Life (2010), has been kind enough to post a short video where I very briefly try to lay out the heart of the book.  The video is linked here.  Thank you Crossway.

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Published: 11 June 2011 11 June 2011

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Paul Helm on N.T. Wright

The older I get the more and more thankful I am for scholars who are willing to state the truth and state it plainly.  Paul Helm is such a scholar, and I am thankful for him.  In this post Helm offers some critical comments on N.T. Wright, whom Helm believes is being a tad evasive in answering a basic question.  Helm for a number of years taught at King's College London, and currently is associated with both Regent College (Vancouver), and--I believe--with Highland Theological College in Scotland.  His blog is a wonderful resource, and one I turn to often.  He has written some significant volumes, one of the most important--to my mind--is his Eternal God: A Study of God without Time, 2nd edition (Oxford, 2010).

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Published: 29 May 2011 29 May 2011

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Peter Leithart on Augustine and Secular Order

Peter Leithart is, to my mind, one of our finest theological thinkers.  In this post, he offers a few brief words on Augustine on the nature of political order.  Leithart is arguing (and believes Augustine argues the same essential way) that the church and civil realms both--in their unique ways--conduct themselves in ways that bring glory and honor to God.  The state is not "secular" while the Church is not.  If "secular" has to do with time and not place (and Leithart follows John Milbank here), and if the secular realm is the pre-eschatological fulfillment realm, then both church and state are "secular" in that they exist in this time, which is a time when the eschatological kingdom has not come in its fullest.

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Published: 26 May 2011 26 May 2011

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