I finished the last “batch” of corrections from my primary and secondary readers and now my MA thesis is “officially” completed. If you are interested in obtaining a copy, you can download the thesis, Either/Or: Either Rationality in Submission to and Defined by the Other or (Ir)rationality as Autonomous and Self-Defined, in PDF format.

In chapter two of his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, Bruce Ellis Benson observes that we tend to think that a musical composition is finished when the piece (in its “final” version) is written down. However, there are a number of assumptions that we should question in connection with such a conclusion. For example, [...]

Bruce Ellis Benson in his book, The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue, argues that instead of choosing between Werktreu[1] or a kind of musical anarchy, we should look to the past where we find a way of conceiving music composition as an event in which the composer and performer become “co-creators.” Using Gadamar as a way [...]

I recently finished a book by Philipp W. Rosemann, entitled, Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault, and would highly recommend it to anyone with both medieval and postmodern sensibilities. Among the many topics and theses that Rosemann engages, the following were particularly interesting: (1) the presentation of a paradigm in which we understand the Western philosophical [...]

In contrast with Auriole, for Ockham there is “no necessary relationship between salvation and grace-induced habits of love” (The Age of Reason, p. 37). This view is reflected in Ockham’s statement, “Quidquid Deus producit mediantibus causis secundis potest immediate sine illis producere et conservare,” i.e., “whatever God can produce by means of secondary causes, he [...]

Peter Auriole, O.F.M. (ca. 1280-1322) was strongly opposed to Scotus’ view of salvation and his emphasis on the covenant. Auriole, though working from the basic Thomistic position of the importance of the created habit of grace, took St. Thomas’ position to its extreme, and argued that the reason for God’s acceptance of an individual lay [...]

Duns Scotus (ca. 1265-1308) was highly critical of St. Thomas’ position regarding the infused habit of grace. Scotus saw himself continuing the Augustinian tradition and in light of Augustine’s teaching on predestination, Scotus wanted to avoid any doctrine that seemed to suggest that God saved human beings because of something intrinsic within them. For Scotus, [...]

As we observed in the last post, Lombard believed that it was the indwelling Holy Spirit—an uncreated love and habit not our own—who works in us without our aid or volition to produce our love for God. Luther sided with Lombard on this point and was a minority voice among the scholastics. St. Thomas comes [...]

This is “part I” of a series that will discuss several medieval theories of salvation and will include: Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus and Ockham. I will eventually get back to the Oberman/nominalism discussion, but Ozment is proving a delightful “distraction.”
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Beginning with St. Augustine, who is arguable the most influential (Western) theologian, we have the view that [...]

1. Aristotle— a “rational animal”
2. Nietzsche—the “yet undetermined animal” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
3. Dostoyevsky’s underground man—“an ungrateful biped” (Notes from the Underground)
I would love to expand this list to include 10-20 philosophical/theological “definitions” of a human being, so please send your comments (and if possible, please cite the work in which you found the definition). Also, [...]

Nate, a seminarian who hopes to be a future pastor in the Lutheran church, directed me to an excellent article in First Things on Luther by David S. Yeago entitled, “The Catholic Luther.”
To whet your appetite, here is a passage summarizing the reading that Yeago offers: “This reading of Luther’s development suggests that the Western [...]

In light of the predominant psychological portraits of Luther as a melancholy monk fixated on his own salvation and obsessed with his sins, we tend to forget that he was a doctor of theology and a learned theologian. As Ozment notes, “[b]etween 1509-10, when he wrote his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and the indulgence [...]

In chapter 6 of Steven Ozment’s excellent book, The Age of Reform, he discusses the “mental world of Martin Luther.” In the first section, Ozment argues against Erik Erikson’s primarily psychological reading of Luther (fixating on his supposed oppressive childhood and things of this sort), and instead interprets Luther in terms of the cultural and [...]

Reading through my last section of notes in preparation for the final lecture of my summer intro to philosophy course, I was struck with the hero and villain motif that pervades the history of Western philosophy, particularly the villain part. For example, for Kierkegaard, Socrates was the hero, whereas for Nietzsche Socrates (Plato) was the [...]

It is commonly argued that the young Luther was a mystic, but then later, after dealing with the radical elements of the Reformation, he changed his position. Heiko Oberman, however, disagrees, pointing to numerous works of Luther over a large span of years and showing a continuity in his thought regarding mysticism, though of course [...]

Having discussed Boulez’s tendencies to control to the point of creating a perceptual sense of disorder (recall that Boulez is a promoter of “total serialism,” a compositional method that organizes music according to mathematical patterns), Begbie then turns to Cage, who at first seems to offer a more promising way. Cage, of course, with his [...]

This post was inspired by a comment and question that Byron at “Nothing New Under the Sun,” made to one of my recent Dostoyevsky posts. Byron asks, “Does Dostoyevsky agree with his narrator?” The question has been gnawing at me ever since, so I decided to read up on some the relevant critical views on [...]

In his fascinating book, Understanding Scholastic Thought With Foucault, Philipp W. Rosemann illustrates how even the “letter,” i.e. the textual base in medieval studies, is affected by paradigm changes. As Rosemann explains, the German philologist, Karl Lachmann, pioneered an editorial method that has by and large determined the form of ancient and medieval texts as [...]

Below is another section from the paper that I am writing for the conference at Baylor. I am particularly happy with the working definition of improvisation as applied to jazz that ends this section. Comments and criticisms are of course welcome.
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Unfortunately, in some circles the term “improvisation” has a number of negative attachments associated with [...]

Сегоднья–День рождения мой! (Today is my birthday!)
Given my love of mystery, I of course can only tell you that today I am thirty-something. After all, there are three things that you should never ask a woman:
(1) Are you pregnant?
(2) Have you gained weight?
(3) How old are you?
[N.b., Regarding #2-3, it is always, always wise to [...]