The Glory of Kings: A Festschrift for James B. Jordan

Fyodor Dostoevsky
(Christian Encounters Series)

Athanasius
(Foundations of Theological Exegesis and Christian Spirituality)

The Four: A Survey of the Gospels

Defending Constantine: The Twilight of an Empire and the Dawn of Christendom

From Behind the Veil: The Epistles of John

Deep Exegesis:The Mystery of Reading Scripture

Jane Austen
(A Biography)

Solomon Among the Postmoderns

The Baptized Body

1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary

The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter

A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons

Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature

Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen

The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism

A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel

Against Christianity

From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution

Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy

Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper

A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament

Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature

Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays

Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life

The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church

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Philosophy: Aristotle’s Wonder

My colleague Jonathan McIntosh writes the following in response to my post quoting Aristotle’s statement about wonder as the beginning of philosophy:

“on your quote from Aristotle on wonder, I like to juxtapose this with another passage from a little later in the Metaphysics in which he writes: ‘It is necessary, however, for the possession of it [i.e., knowledge] to settle for us in a certain way into the opposite of the strivings with which it began. For everyone begins, as we are saying, from wondering whether things are as they seem, such as the self-moving marvels, or about the reversals of the sun or the incommensurability of the diagonal… But it is necessary to end in what is opposite and better, as the saying goes…’ (i.2.983a, Joe Sachs translation). In other words, philosophy may begin in wonder, but for Aristotle the goal is ultimately to transcend this wonder and exchange it for something ‘opposite and better,’ namely knowledge that is less human and more divine, fixed, and ‘certain.’ The Christianized Aristotelian tradition of Aquinas, of course, by seeing all things as having their origin in a God who can never be fully known, succeeds in prolonging and even perpetuating the sense of wonder that Aristotle admitted only at the beginning of the philosophical enterprise, as when Aquinas, for example, famously writes ‘all the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly.’”