I recently had the opportunity to do some work for “Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy” on the meaning of “nous” and why it’s so hard to translate this tricky little Greek word. This grew out of deeply personal – at some points, agonizing – struggles I’ve had with Fr. John Romanides’ anthropology and its close alignment with secularism and atheism. I was blessed to be assisted by a number of scholars who patiently helped me work through the thorny linguistical and philosophical issues leading up to the O&H essay. The essay is available for free at the link below:
How “Nous” Became a Trojan Horse For Secularism, and Why it is So Difficult to Translate
It’s been a joy to become more involved with The Symbolic World and the community there. I owe Jonathan Pageau a huge debt of gratitude, as anyone will know who has read the acknowledgement section of Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation (as well as pages 129, 131, and 166!). Part of my involvement with TSW community has been the publication of a paper titled “The Artistry of the Machine in the Empire of Desire.” In this article, I build on my previous TSW article, “Technology and the Return of the Old Gods,” but whereas the earlier article looked at the spiritual ramification of new digital technology, my new contribution looks at the metaphysical implications of emerging technologies. I explore how art, in its classical conception as an outworking of craft, invites us to embrace the givenness of creational order as an alternative to the burdensome demands of what I call (following Rusty Reno) “the empire of desire.”
Check out the latest Symbolic World blog post,
The Artistry of the Machine in the Empire of Desire, by Robin Phillips: https://t.co/kHFwnMYcPZ— Jonathan Pageau (@PageauJonathan) May 31, 2023
The Cormac Jones Journal recently interacted with some concerns I raised following essays by Rod Dreher and Paul Kingsnorth (see here and here) that they wrote ahead of a conference in Dublin seeking the “Bush Soul of Christianity.” To the degree that the aforementioned essays positioned this burgeoning movement as a repudiation of “the West,” and to the degree that such repudiation seems to be supercharged by the theories of Iain Mcgilchrist that I have previously raised concerns about (prematurely, I am willing to admit), I was prompted to ask Cormac Jones what he thought. While not always agreeing with how I have contextualized the issues, Jones’ essay offers some insights that I found helpful. It can be read at the link below:
“The West Must Repent,” he blogged
I have been privileged to appear on a couple AFM podcasts to discuss Rediscovering the Goodness of Creation: A Manual For Recovering Gnostics. In one of these podcasts, Dr. Jenkins interviewed me and my friend Joshua Pauling about my book. We talked about everything from Gnosticism to Neoplatonism to artificial intelligence. You can listen to our conversation at the link below:
I was also a recent guest on “Ancient Faith Today” with Fr. Thomas Soroka. I was joined by Dr. Phillip Cary, who was one of my mentors when writing my book. We had a great conversation about everything from Protestant fundamentalism to what we can learn from turtles about the metaphysics of beauty. This conversation can be heard at the link below.
Some people have had problems accessing that link, but the conversation is also available on YouTube below: