By Dru Johnson

In Part I, I began to describe knowing as an act, rather than knowledge as a thing. If knowing is fundamentally an act, then we should describe what that act looks like. For Polanyi, knowing is a trajectory. So we shouldn’t talk about an epistemic structure, per se, but rather of “coming to [...]

This is the first of a series of guest posts from a number of friends and colleagues. Each series will consist in I-III parts and will cover a wide range of topics within philosophy and theology. The first is a short series on Michael Polanyi by Dru Johnson[1].
First of all, for those who want the [...]

The schedule for the upcoming conference, “The World and Christian Imagination,” (held at Baylor University) has been posted. If you plan to attend and are a student, the registration fee ($60) must be paid by Oct. 10 (after Oct. 10 the fee increases to $80). You can download registration forms here. Travel [...]

[This is last post in the Oberman series. I hope to begin a new series of "guest posts" this weekend].
In section 4, “Pax and the Third Age,” Oberman observes that peace and concord were the “two most prominent themes in treatises and reform proposals throughout the later Middle Ages” (p. 29). We see a close [...]

Given the “crisis” state described in the previous section, Oberman seeks in this section (“The Search for New Security”) to focus on one aspect of the late medieval attempt to find “new forms of security, namely, the bridging of the distance between the sacred and the profane” (pp. 25-26). As Oberman explains, late medieval scholasticism’s [...]

Part IV and following covers chapter 2 (“The Shape of Late Medieval Thought: The Birthpangs of the Modern Era”) of Oberman’s book, The Dawn of the Reformation. Oberman opens by listing three assumptions involved in his project of investigating the shape of medieval thought: (1) it implies a quest for the beginning of the modern [...]

In section six, “High Mysticism and the Beginnings of the Devotio Moderna,” Oberman discusses additional characteristics of 14th century piety and thought. First we have a reaction in the form of Devotio moderna to the high mysticism of M. Eckhardt and company in the North. In addition to an anti-speculative attitude (not anti-intellectual), the Devotio [...]

In section four, Oberman discusses what he calls an “Augustinian Renaissance” which occurs around 1330. The main characteristic of this renaissance is that Augustine is viewed as the authoritative and definitive interpreter of the gospel. Two major representatives of this “Augustinian Renaissance” were Thomas Bradwardine (archbishop of Canterbury) and Gregory of Rimini—both of whom were [...]

This series will be a multi-part presentation of chapters 1-2 of Heiko A. Oberman’s book, The Dawn of the Reformation. Oberman divides chapter one, “Fourteenth-Century Religious Thought: A Premature Profile,” into seven sections. This post will cover sections 1-3. The first section serves an introduction in which Oberman spells out his intentions for this chapter. [...]

Since both of our potential candidates [as discussed in Part III of this series] are failures, Kretzman poses a “third way” and reminds the reader of his claim in footnote 1 that the “concept of God,” which is essential to his discussion, has yet to be mentioned even though much “god-talk” has taken place.[1] This [...]

In order to help us see more clearly the differences between the theories that emerge from the second and third interpretations [discussed in Part II of this series], Kretzman turns to Plato’s dialogue, the Euthyphro. In the dialogue, we encounter Socractes meeting Euthyphro before going to court and Socrates finds out that Euthyphro plans to [...]

The first possible solution offered by Kretzman [to the problem mentioned in Part I of our series] is that Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac out of fear of what God might do to him if he disobeyed or that he [Abraham] obeyed in order to receive a reward from God.[1] In fact, we do [...]