Banishing the Party of Memory?

By |2020-07-02T15:43:06-05:00July 2nd, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Conservatism, Hope, Liberalism, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine|

Banishing memory and the party of memory is nothing short of the banishment of the love and joy which make our lives and memories worth cherishing and conserving. The conservative celebrates the present order precisely because it is imbued with the traces of Eden which vivify our memories—and, therefore, our true selves—and unite us in [...]

Saint Augustine on Figurative Language in Scripture

By |2023-10-08T19:42:02-05:00February 8th, 2020|Categories: Bible, Christianity, Christine Norvell, Culture, Education, Religion, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Theology|

It’s true that when trying to understanding Scripture we need to establish an analysis of concrete terms. But if we aren’t careful, we just might explain away the beauty of descriptive language the Bible. Saint Augustine of Hippo encountered the same issue, and not just among his youngest students. In humanities coursework, we often train [...]

Where, Then, Is Time?

By |2023-05-21T11:29:15-05:00November 11th, 2019|Categories: E.B., Eva Brann, Imagination, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Moral Imagination, Philosophy, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, St. John's College, Time|

If it is the case that time never makes its appearance out in the world but only motion is in evidence, then either time is not or it is in the only other venue of which I can think, inside our soul. Let me first explain my odd-sounding title. It is a variation on the [...]

An Invitation to Augustine’s “City of God”

By |2019-08-25T00:05:09-05:00August 24th, 2019|Categories: Books, Christendom, Civilization, Education, Great Books, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine|

No work of Christian theology has left such an impact on the world and biblical interpretation and understanding as St. Augustine’s “City of God.” We who read the Bible do so, often unknowingly, through the eyes of the bishop of Hippo. In 410 A.D., the city of Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. Rome was [...]

From Diotima to Christ: Augustine’s Visionary Ascents in the “Confessions”

By |2020-08-20T11:50:21-05:00March 9th, 2019|Categories: Books, Christianity, Literature, Love, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Truth, Wisdom|

Augustine’s “Confessions” is the odyssey of the soul. It is the odyssey of the human heart, as Augustine shifts from the emphasis of intellect to the primacy of love. He shows that it is not by having a strong mind that one is capable of ascent and touching; rather, it is by having a strong [...]

The Classics and Christianity

By |2020-11-28T06:22:09-06:00January 11th, 2019|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Civilization, Classical Education, Classics, Culture, Great Books, Homer, Liberal Learning, Literature, Myth, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Virgil, Western Civilization, Western Tradition, Worldview|

Christians invented the classical curriculum; it is as much part of the broader Western inheritance as it is specifically part of the Christian inheritance. Why study old books? How do dusty old books written by dead men and women thousands of years ago grow my faith? Such can be common thoughts when the Christian is [...]

What, Then, Is Time?

By |2023-05-21T11:29:58-05:00January 7th, 2019|Categories: Aristotle, Classics, E.B., Eva Brann, Great Books, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, St. John's College, Time|

The future is nothing but the dreams and plans we currently have; nothing is coming but what we actively or passively agree to. When our dean asked me to lecture this September it was because I’ve just completed a book on time, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about it. There seemed [...]

Family, Love, and Tragedy in “The Godfather”

By |2022-03-18T11:26:39-05:00November 22nd, 2018|Categories: Books, Culture, Featured, Film, Literature, Love, Morality, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, The Godfather, Tragedy|

The Godfather is the Augustinian film par excellence–though it does not conclude where Augustine's vision ends... The Godfather, by Mario Puzo, was the best-selling book when it was first published and the film adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola is rightly considered a masterpiece. The drama of The Godfather is an epic; it is an epic because [...]

Virtue and the City

By |2022-09-29T11:28:33-05:00November 18th, 2018|Categories: Aristotle, Cicero, Featured, Great Books, Paul Krause, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Politics, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

Virtue is what the good city aims to achieve as part of the common good. Since humans are social animals and creatures of actions, the call to cultivate virtue within civil society is a fundamental aspect of the good society and the good regime... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the [...]

Saint Augustine’s “Confessions”: An Introduction

By |2020-11-12T16:16:24-06:00October 13th, 2018|Categories: Books, Great Books, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine|

Augustine is accessible and applicable because he is one of us. He suffers from the same temptations and succumbs to those temptations. He falls and does not always get up again, preferring to wallow in the gutter with his lusts and his illicit appetites. And yet, like us, he is restless until he rests in [...]

The Augustine Option: A Third Way?

By |2021-08-27T15:57:47-05:00September 8th, 2018|Categories: Christendom, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Conservatism, Culture, St. Augustine|

If we are indeed witnessing the nadir of American politics—or at least its accelerating decline—we should listen closely to Augustine. The “Augustine Option,” meaning a life lived in the final years of Rome, can offer key insights into how we should understand and address these tumultuous times. To the continued debate over whether religious Americans [...]

Augustine’s “Confessions” Unpacked

By |2021-11-12T14:43:02-06:00June 9th, 2018|Categories: Books, Christianity, Faith, Great Books, Louis Markos, Religion, St. Augustine, Theology|

Augustine’s Confessions is first and foremost a prayer to God. Indeed, unless we read it as a prayer, we will not understand it; we will only study it. I Burned for Your Peace: Augustine’s Confessions Unpacked, by Peter Kreeft (240 pages, Ignatius Press, 2016) Back in 1990, I had the rare privilege of teaching in [...]

Does Love Always Lead to Suffering?

By |2021-04-27T12:06:42-05:00March 21st, 2018|Categories: Aristotle, Christianity, Ethics, George Stanciu, Homer, Love, Plato, Religion, St. Augustine|

Much of suffering is an impenetrable mystery. But to a limited degree, we are able to understand suffering if we can come to understand what love is. Pope John Paul II, in Salvifici Doloris, writes, “Sacred Scripture is a great book about suffering.”[1] He then quotes the Old Testament to illustrate the spectrum of human suffering: the [...]

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