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Geoff's Miscellany

Miscellaneous Musings

Archives for October 2019

David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved

October 21, 2019 by Geoff 1 Comment

I pre-ordered Hart’s most recent book as soon as I discovered it would be released. I like Hart’s work and I found his New Testament translation to be mostly helpful despite its many shortcomings. His new book is thought provoking and contains at least three hard to beat arguments for apokatastasis (the doctrine that God will redeem every last living soul in the end). I’ll write about it in the future. To be honest, I’m nearly convinced.

But this book helped be realize something else about Hart that I had only ever had intimations of, but never quite verbalized.

Hart’s verbal invective is something I used to excuse as the result of reading so much rhetoric from the eras he studies most, a fun way to be in an otherwise stultifying and boring life: academia. I took his rudeness as a sort of acquired by study version ancient honor-shame culture that men of great ambition used to utilize to make important points. Teddy Roosevelt made awesome insults, so did Seneca, Jesus, Augustine, the puritans, etc.

So when people complain about Hart’s verbal abuse, I’ve always taken them to be thin-skinned. If Hart is too mean, then isn’t Jesus?

But thinking back through it, Hart treats scholars with whom he shares 99% agreement as imbeciles if they do not agree with even his most obscurantist viewpoints. This is not mere rhetorical flourish, but an inability to empathize with other viewpoints. More importantly, they give them impression of being the angry lashings out of somebody who feels bullied. Now, who feels bullied by slight disagreements? Typically the physically unthreatening or inept. The man who feels rejected by the physical culture of other men fells that his only weapons are words. Men like this have no other way to hurt people they feel misunderstood by. I’ve met a lot of academics and quite a few of them have this problem. May Hart’s compassion for those who misunderstand him grow in proportion to his belief in God’s grace.

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Filed Under: Contemporary Trends, Christianity

Atmospheric Music

October 13, 2019 by Geoff Leave a Comment

This song will obviously improve your quality of life or I wouldn’t have posted it.

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Filed Under: Music, Culture

Mortimer Adler on The Virtues

October 8, 2019 by Geoff Leave a Comment

This is a good, brief listen for a big education:

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Filed Under: Ethics, Education, Philosophy Tagged With: Mortimer Adler

Where is the lie?

October 7, 2019 by Geoff Leave a Comment

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Filed Under: Culture, Philosophy, Politics Tagged With: molech worship

Servant-Leadership or Servant-Greatness?

October 3, 2019 by Geoff Leave a Comment

I read a really good article on Servant-Benefaction here:

The Servant-Benefactor as a Model of Greatness

It’s pretty illuminating for anybody wishing to understand Luke 22.

You can access it freely using “sci-hub.tw/<insert url here>”

Here’s a good line from the conclusion:

Those who aspire to “greatness”, but who are not yet called “benefactors” (v 26a), are advised to follow the example of Jesus, the servant-benefactor par excellence (v 27b), and that of those apostles who remained with Jesus throughout the Passion (v 28).

D.J. Lull

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Filed Under: Christianity

A Brief Thought on Identity Politics

October 3, 2019 by Geoff Leave a Comment

Identity politics are a game that can probably only be eschewed by the people who are going to lose.

Pointing out that identity politics is unfair and unreasonable to the people who play/live by those rules just means that they automatically win.

An example of this would be expecting parent not to prefer their child over other children in parent teacher conferences or school administrative meetings. People side with the group they identify with and maybe they’re obligated to do so (maybe not) absent violations of truth, goodness, and beauty. But it seems that many of the Americans who reject identity politics as tool for political power or ethical reasoning still watch various versions of sports and have deep emotional attachments to those teams. They also tend to show a lot of loyalty to their alma mater.

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Filed Under: Philosophy

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