The Theology Pugcast

In this episode Tom returns to the topic of Meaning in History (a three show aim) by looking at ways Modernity rejected classical Christian understanding of history and meaning and developed alternatives which borrowed from Christianity while introducing radical alternative notions which still impact us today, often unwittingly. This show has the guys discussing Vico and Herder, along with many other important themes.

Jumping off another suggested topic from our faithful listeners, the Pugsters talk about the medieval guild system. The guilds were a way to protect customers and, with export goods, the reputation of the city by guaranteeing the quality of products. They also guaranteed a level playing field for producers. Along with their economic role, the guilds performed social and spiritual functions, with the process of mastering your craft seen as a metaphor for the process of spiritual growth. Glenn clears up a lot of misconceptions about the guilds and the Middle Ages in general, and the guys talk about the quality of medieval craftsmanship vs. the disposable world created by industrialization and consumerism.

Today Chris introduces listeners to Political Scientist, Scott Yenor’s new book, The Recovery of Family Life: Exposing the Limits of Modern Ideologies. Just what is an ideology anyway? Is it merely a philosophy in different clothes? Listen in and find out why it isn’t.

This week the guys discuss how many contemporary views of history assume or draw upon aspects of Christian historical understanding, inadvertently borrowing its teleological character, even when they undermine other essential aspects of it. Christian faith altered conceptions of history and brought to the fore a notion of history as being meaningful and being directed towards culminating purposes. Secular emancipatory views which see history as progressing toward justice, or utopia, are examples that the guys get into in this important discussion.

Working from the articles in the link, the Pugsters talk about aesthetics—the philosophical field focused on questions of beauty and taste. Rather than beauty being purely in the eye of the beholder, the guys agree that beauty is objective and rooted in the transcendence of God. And that means that there is a right and wrong way to respond to beauty or the lack thereof. In this way, aesthetics is a moral issue. From there, the Pugsters explore a variety of ways that beauty is defiled, whether from viewing art as a means to shock or to produce intentional ugliness, or from kitsch, commercialism or utilitarianism, or from twisting it to support ideologies. The last is on full display in the program for the Tolkien Society’s Summer seminar this year, also linked below. https://hedgehogreview.com/blog/thr/posts/more-than-a-matter-of-taste?fbclid=IwAR3iV1ACuKg2Yv05RFI-DuLQa2jKseLYrmW3bn0OYVx_Iq1AAiSkeJpI8ck

In our time everyone is obligated to create an identity for himself. We're supposed to "self-create"--making ourselves into works of art that are utterly original, you know, like snow flakes. So why is it that people increasingly think alike and are so fearful of disapproval? In today's show the guys discuss the paradoxical relationship between mimesis (mimicry) and poesis (creation, or making). They arrive at the conclusion that only people who have mastered skills through mimesis are capable of making something new--i.e. original. Until then everyone is finger painting.

In this episode, the guys engage with fresh insights the contemporary vision of reality, human nature and purposes as they are understood from a radically immanent, materialist frame. After noting how Christian themes are often ripped from their transcendent frame and redefined with an immanent one, the pugsters evaluate not only the problems and limits of such a move but also ways in which the rich transcendental vision of Christianity has become almost foreign in this over familiar materialist setting. The conversation then turns to ways in which the classic Christian vision, especially its eschatological and teleological riches, supplies the necessary resources for restoring to Christian life a truly transcendent vision but also provide the only means for up-ending the anthropocentric turn of the contemporary vision of things. The Critical Theory lectures Glenn mentions in the episode will be at 7:00 PM on Friday and Saturday, June 11 and 12, at the Christian Reformed Church, 3275 Washington Ave., St. Joseph, Michigan.

The Pugsters return to a topic they’ve touched on before: the problems with the Enlightenment. Glenn starts off with a summary of changing ideas of authority, focusing on the transition from Reason and Revelation to Reason over Revelation to Reason without Revelation. That gets the guys into the Enlightenment, autonomous reason, and some of the problems associated with it. Glenn then looks at Romanticism as a reaction against the Enlightenment and other stress points in the period, noting both the problems with Romanticism and some of the things the Romantics got right. The conclusion points out that both the Enlightenment and Romanticism have problems, but each of them also gets things right. It’s only in the Gospel that the different strengths of each can be united and the problems avoided.

In today's episode Chris introduces the subject of mystery and the ways modern people and ancient people used the term--surprise, surprise, they didn't mean the same thing--at times, they even mean things that contradict each other. Chris also delves into the way in the modern outlook in general can mystify people and keep them from seeing the truth of things; he uses Carl Trueman's new book as a good use of reason to demystify modern ways of thinking.

The guys finish unpacking the discussion of Plato from Ed Feser's article Woke Ideology is a Psychological Disorder. After noting how Plato understands the sick society, where democracy as a social disorder leads to tyranny, the guys engage Plato's insights, noting positives and yet critiquing the limits of Plato's vision in light of the the riches of the Christian understanding of the virtue. The aim is to retrieve the riches of Christian moral reflection as it engaged classic visions of morality and carved out a fully salvic vision which also has insights for addressing the maladies of our time.