Saturday, June 24, 2006
(10:06 AM) | Adam Kotsko:
Craziness
As of yesterday, I had 40 more books left to read on the 20th Century Theology list. I went to the library in order to have more of them on hand, so as to avoid for as long as possible the psychological obstacles related to feeling like I have to read a particular book. Here are the books that I now have in my apartment:I listed them in no particular order because I plan to read them in no particular order. This is craziness. But there is one nice feature here -- although I'm overwhelmed whenever I look at the list, I am also sincerely interested in almost all the books on it, to some degree (with the possible exception of Reinhold Niebuhr).Hegel, Philosophy of History (currently reading)
Feuerbach, The Essence of Religion
Schleiermacher, Speeches on Religion
Rosenzweig, Star of Redemption
Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine
Otto, The Idea of the Holy
Altizer, Genesis and Apocalypse
Levinas, Difficult Freedom
Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress
Boff, Trinity and Society
Oduyoye, Hearing and Knowing
The Troeltsch had an author photo in it -- looking at it, I realized that I had always pictured Moltmann on those rare occasions where I conjured up a mental image of Troeltsch. (It's a little scary to me that I feel completely 100% confident in the spelling of the name "Troeltsch.")
Onward to Hegel -- and victory!
UPDATE: I know that Hegel is a really important and complex thinker, and so I'm hesitant to say anything "negative" or "critical" about him before studying more in-depth, but I wonder if maybe he might not sometimes say things that could possibly be construed as perhaps a little... racist? I mean, I know it was a different time, and we can't impose our quote-unquote "politically correct" standards on him, but still.
UPDATE (2): The blockquote in this post is pretty funny. I can't wait until The Christian Century publishes a take-down piece about The Weblog -- or AKMA, I guess, which is the "biggest" theology-related blog I can think of off-hand.
Does anyone want to start a journal or magazine for radical left-wing theology? Word on the street is that such voices have had very few venues since Christianity and Crisis shut down. I once broached this topic before at CTS, and the faculty seemed pretty supportive -- but the student response was somewhat disappointing, and I got busy with other things. Maybe this is the kind of effort that is best saved for after the PhD.
UPDATE (3): So it's Sunday and I'm still reading Hegel. I am using the old Encyclopedia Brittanica/University of Chicago "Great Books" edition (generously donated by an erstwhile Weblog reader), which has the benefit of also including Philosophy of Right, but the drawback of being basically a reference work and thus being printed accordingly -- very large pages, two columns, relatively small print. All of my normal expectations about pacing my reading have been shattered, similar to what happened when I was reading out of the Ante-Nicene or Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers volumes.
I suppose that if I could ask Hegel one question, it would be as follows: "It seems to me that the first three steps in this historical process took place relatively close together -- Persia, succeeded by Greece, succeeded by Rome. Why is it, then, that the final step takes probably longer than the first three put together?" Or is he saved by the contrivance of claiming that the German period is divided into three phases parallel to the first three? After all, for a revolution to "take," it has to happen twice -- so presumably the entire history of Spirit has to be repeated twice.
Alright, I've convinced myself. The guy's argument is bullet-proof. Plus he says that Islam is the religion of fanaticism directed toward sheer destruction! And here I thought that this wasn't going to be "applicable."
UPDATE (4 [5:18pm]): Roughly ten minutes ahead of the schedule I set myself after writing the last update, I have finished Philosophy of History. Process theology's much-vaunted solution to the problem of evil is decisively debunked: the solution to theodicy is not ... um, process-y stuff, but rather a rationally organized constitutional monarchy. I knew there would be a happy ending. (Based on a comparison with my roommate's more traditionally formatted copy of this book, I have plowed through the equivalent of 250 pages -- a much more satisfying figure than the mere 100 that I objectively read today.)
Now I'm thinking that I'll read my page and a half of Latin for today, then maybe play some piano, then who knows? Who knows?!
UPDATE (5): At this point I'm just doing an update for the sake of it. There's a pretty nice park northeast of my house, I just discovered. That's in addition to the one that's southeast of my house. I took a walk -- because I'm living a secluded life of monastic discipline, I have to specifically schedule in a time to walk around outside. I asked one of my CTS colleagues if she could loan me her dog for this purpose, but she has not yet responded. I suspect her answer will be "no," since this would require her dog to travel a considerable distance, just to begin her official "walk."
That was one thing that was nice about having Wrigley McElroy living at my house, a ready excuse to go out for a walk. I've been thinking back to that period in my life a lot lately, my first semester at CTS, when my work schedule and the commute imposed a pretty strict reading discipline. Part of this involves listening to a lot of the same music that I associate closely with that period, and I can't decide whether this is cause or effect. (The primary thing is Godspeed's Slow Riot for Zero New Kanada. My music taste is, as they say, "introductory." I've kind of stopped seeking out new music -- now it's all a recapitulation. I'm reliving phases of my life over and over. "The American government is one systematic government that nobody can trust. I don't trust them myself.")
Lauren called at around 6:00, saying that she was at 394 and I-94. Her predicted arrival time was approximately "in a half hour." Due to various factors, I felt this prediction was "wildly optimistic." Although time has shown that I was correct, I do worry that I'm developing a kind of geography fixation. It started off when I was on the lawn mowing crew back in Michigan and my co-workers recruited me to drive the truck. All of a sudden, I had to memorize the grid of streets in the county (something I'd never gotten around to before), as well as learn how to back up with a trailer. My short-lived pizza delivery job in Kankakee County continued the basic trend, but it wasn't until I moved into Chicago that geography threatened to become a full-fledged obsession.
This is becoming the longest post ever. Maybe I'll just keep updating it throughout the week, too.
