The atmosphere they created with you speaking through the dramatic classical strings verged on the comedic. Save for the spelling error in one of
your titles, this was a well edited promo that whet the appetite in satisfying ways. You are surprisingly natural in affected positions and dare I say, you’ve lost some flesh.
That's a terrific audio piece. The vision of a truly cosmopolitan future and Christianity's role within it is beautiful. As usual, I find your approach liberating and it brings me to tears, which for someone not especially given to crying is marvellously disconcerting.
“Around the inner perimeter of this circle which is our daily world are many, many ways—call them doors—by which we can enter the next smaller, that is larger, circle of their world. Here the inhabitants appear the size of ghost-birds or errant candle-flames. This is our most common experience of them, because it is only through this first perimeter that most people ever pass, if at all. The next-innermost perimeter is smaller, and thus has fewer doors; it is therefore less likely anyone would step through by chance. There, the inhabitants will appear fairy-children or Little People, a manifestation correspondingly less often observed. And so on further within: the vast, inner circles where they grow to full size are so tiny that we step completely over them, constantly, in our daily lives, without knowing we do so, and never enter there at all—though it may be that in the old heroic age, access there was easier, and so we have the many tales of deeds done there. And lastly, the vastest circle, the infinity, the center point—Faëry, ladies and gentlemen, where the heroes ride across endless landscapes and sail sea beyond sea and there is no end to possibility—why that circle is so tiny it has no door at all.”
Very fine job, Jesse and crew. And Dr. Hart, it was a delight to sit and sip coffee within earshot of your (often riotously funny) elucidation of your pedagogical vision, over and against so many of the educational impoverishments of our current moment. I wont go so far as to shamelessly promote the school where I teach on *your* substack—even though I am, incidentally, the not-so-degenerate lurker who made you the cup of coffee. But you'll perhaps be pleased to hear that to my own amazement—and sometimes to the delightful amelioration of my own cynical incredulity—said school embodies, in granular and particular ways, much of the vision you describe.
One pithy comment after another. An example: "I have seen grade schools promote themselves as places where children are being given the skills that will allow them to succeed. Give them the skills that will allow them to fail."
Thank you for this kind share. (Btw, alongside of the 10 additional minutes with Hart in the last link above to my personal website, I've noted a coupon code as we happen to have two free months of the ClassicalU subscription currently on offer where the 1.5 hour mini-course is posted.)
Sorry in advance for both the length of this comment and its irrelevancy to the actual post, but I recently watched your interview with Jennifer Newsome Martin for University of Notre Dame Press and was wondering if you could clarify some things for me. You mention that in salvation, God merely removes impediments to our nature rather than adding to it. However, the question might then become "Why is such a thing even necessary, why are there impediments to our nature?" I know almost nothing about the two-tiered Thomist system, but in many ways it seems to reflect how we understand Christian eschatology (there's an Age Abiding and an Age to Come). How are "impediments to nature" understood in such a way as to produce the dualistic relationship between the Age Abiding and the Age to Come which we know to exist, thus rendering a two tiered system unnecessary? I can see such impediments leading to something like a spectrum of states of being, but not to two distinct Ages, which seems to be what's actually happening in creation (at least, according to the Christian story).
Additionally, how would you fit Jesus's role into all of this? The way you describe human nature, it seems like you see the incarnation (and specifically the cross/resurrection of Christ) as unnecessary to salvation. Or, at the very least, all it can do is provide a sign of something which already necessarily happens due to potencies within our nature that God cannot fail to actualize. Do you understand Jesus's role as being instrumental in some way? During your talk with Tariq Goddard, you mentioned that the reason you call yourself a Christian is because you "cannot be done with the person of Christ," which at least makes it seem like you do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God--he doesn't seem central or necessary. To an inquirer into Christianity like myself, a rejection of this concept seems almost inevitably like a rejection of Christianity as such. In rejecting the necessity of the death and resurrection of the individual man Jesus Christ in the drama of salvation, aren't you essentially implying that this core element of Christianity is built upon faulty premises about the grace/nature distinction? Do you conceptualize Easter as God's direct rescue as Christ, or merely as a revelation of God's rescue which is not itself the rescue? For you, in what sense is Jesus Christ peculiarly, actually God, if any?
Sorry if you've answered some of these questions in the past and I just haven't noticed--I'm fairly new to your work, and so I'm still making my way through your books.
The atmosphere they created with you speaking through the dramatic classical strings verged on the comedic. Save for the spelling error in one of
your titles, this was a well edited promo that whet the appetite in satisfying ways. You are surprisingly natural in affected positions and dare I say, you’ve lost some flesh.
That's a terrific audio piece. The vision of a truly cosmopolitan future and Christianity's role within it is beautiful. As usual, I find your approach liberating and it brings me to tears, which for someone not especially given to crying is marvellously disconcerting.
“Around the inner perimeter of this circle which is our daily world are many, many ways—call them doors—by which we can enter the next smaller, that is larger, circle of their world. Here the inhabitants appear the size of ghost-birds or errant candle-flames. This is our most common experience of them, because it is only through this first perimeter that most people ever pass, if at all. The next-innermost perimeter is smaller, and thus has fewer doors; it is therefore less likely anyone would step through by chance. There, the inhabitants will appear fairy-children or Little People, a manifestation correspondingly less often observed. And so on further within: the vast, inner circles where they grow to full size are so tiny that we step completely over them, constantly, in our daily lives, without knowing we do so, and never enter there at all—though it may be that in the old heroic age, access there was easier, and so we have the many tales of deeds done there. And lastly, the vastest circle, the infinity, the center point—Faëry, ladies and gentlemen, where the heroes ride across endless landscapes and sail sea beyond sea and there is no end to possibility—why that circle is so tiny it has no door at all.”
"Please note: Dr. Hart uses some salty language (such as “what the hell”) at a few points in his comments throughout this course."
lol, I'm glad this kind of moral sensitivity still exists.
Will there be any assignments or anything or is it just recordings?
Other than the ridiculous music (and it's too loud, making Hart's charmingly quietly grumbly voice), this looks pretty good!
Glad to see that you were concerned about the World Series, it’s good to keep your mind set on the important things.
While this sounds interesting, I hope ClassicalU is nothing like the preposterous and ideologically motivated and unethical and fraudulent PragerU.
Very fine job, Jesse and crew. And Dr. Hart, it was a delight to sit and sip coffee within earshot of your (often riotously funny) elucidation of your pedagogical vision, over and against so many of the educational impoverishments of our current moment. I wont go so far as to shamelessly promote the school where I teach on *your* substack—even though I am, incidentally, the not-so-degenerate lurker who made you the cup of coffee. But you'll perhaps be pleased to hear that to my own amazement—and sometimes to the delightful amelioration of my own cynical incredulity—said school embodies, in granular and particular ways, much of the vision you describe.
One pithy comment after another. An example: "I have seen grade schools promote themselves as places where children are being given the skills that will allow them to succeed. Give them the skills that will allow them to fail."
I've just started my day with a big wide warm smile. Must share and share.
Thank you for this kind share. (Btw, alongside of the 10 additional minutes with Hart in the last link above to my personal website, I've noted a coupon code as we happen to have two free months of the ClassicalU subscription currently on offer where the 1.5 hour mini-course is posted.)
Dr. Hart,
Sorry in advance for both the length of this comment and its irrelevancy to the actual post, but I recently watched your interview with Jennifer Newsome Martin for University of Notre Dame Press and was wondering if you could clarify some things for me. You mention that in salvation, God merely removes impediments to our nature rather than adding to it. However, the question might then become "Why is such a thing even necessary, why are there impediments to our nature?" I know almost nothing about the two-tiered Thomist system, but in many ways it seems to reflect how we understand Christian eschatology (there's an Age Abiding and an Age to Come). How are "impediments to nature" understood in such a way as to produce the dualistic relationship between the Age Abiding and the Age to Come which we know to exist, thus rendering a two tiered system unnecessary? I can see such impediments leading to something like a spectrum of states of being, but not to two distinct Ages, which seems to be what's actually happening in creation (at least, according to the Christian story).
Additionally, how would you fit Jesus's role into all of this? The way you describe human nature, it seems like you see the incarnation (and specifically the cross/resurrection of Christ) as unnecessary to salvation. Or, at the very least, all it can do is provide a sign of something which already necessarily happens due to potencies within our nature that God cannot fail to actualize. Do you understand Jesus's role as being instrumental in some way? During your talk with Tariq Goddard, you mentioned that the reason you call yourself a Christian is because you "cannot be done with the person of Christ," which at least makes it seem like you do not believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the only begotten Son of God--he doesn't seem central or necessary. To an inquirer into Christianity like myself, a rejection of this concept seems almost inevitably like a rejection of Christianity as such. In rejecting the necessity of the death and resurrection of the individual man Jesus Christ in the drama of salvation, aren't you essentially implying that this core element of Christianity is built upon faulty premises about the grace/nature distinction? Do you conceptualize Easter as God's direct rescue as Christ, or merely as a revelation of God's rescue which is not itself the rescue? For you, in what sense is Jesus Christ peculiarly, actually God, if any?
Sorry if you've answered some of these questions in the past and I just haven't noticed--I'm fairly new to your work, and so I'm still making my way through your books.
Gifting subs here to my friends for Christmas, downloading these discussions for myself. Happy Christmas!