Tag Archives: ethics

O’Donovan on City of God, Book 19

Posted on August 1, 2018 by J. B. Aitken

Augustine’s City of God Book 19 is the most challenging piece of ethics ever written.  O’Donovan’s interpretation of Book 19 is the most challenging piece of ethics I’ve ever read. And while O’Donovan will suggest an insolvable tension between the two loves/cities, … Continue reading →

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O’Donovan on the Human Embryo

Posted on July 29, 2018 by J. B. Aitken

I’ve browsed Oliver O’Donovan’s Begotten not made, his book on bioethics, but I haven’t done a full study on it.  In today’s sexual confusion and in science’s rush to transhumanism, carefully studying O’Donovan’s works isn’t a bad idea.  Here is a … Continue reading →

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O’Donovans: From Irenaeus to Grotius

Posted on July 25, 2018 by J. B. Aitken

O’Donovans, Oliver and Joan Lockwood.  From Irenaeus to Grotius. Eerdmans. This sourcebook is divided into five parts: The Patristic Age, Late Antiquity and Germanic Kingship, The Integration of Aristotle, Spiritual Polities and Dominum, and Renaissance and reformation. At the risk of … Continue reading →

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Review: Morality after Calvin

Posted on July 24, 2018 by J. B. Aitken

Summers, Kirk.  Morality After Calvin.  New York: Oxford, 2017. Kirk Summers documents and illustrates the problems facing the Genevan church after Calvin’s death, as illustrated in Theodore Beza’s Cato. While Beza will defend natural law, he has no interest in constructing a … Continue reading →

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Review: Frame, Doctrine of the Christian Life

Posted on September 21, 2017 by J. B. Aitken

If you have read Frame before, then you know what you are getting:  carefully argued positions, fair treatment to opponents, and a staggering amount of biblical reflection. His tri-perspectivalism is on display here, as in earlier books.  I will address … Continue reading →

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St Basil: On Social Justice

Posted on April 1, 2017 by J. B. Aitken

The book is a collection of homilies St Basil wrote during the famine that hit Cappadocia.  The book exhibits his sheer rhetorical power.  One almost wept with pity in his homily on those who lend at interest.  One problem, though: … Continue reading →

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You are what you love (review)

Posted on January 17, 2017 by J. B. Aitken

What we love and desire forms the space for what we know. And so James K. A. Smith reads Augustine’s key phrases in the Confessions. Smith writes: ““In some sense, love is a condition for knowledge” (Smith 7). I love … Continue reading →

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Notes on Wyclif from O’Donovan.

Posted on January 11, 2017 by J. B. Aitken

A running series of notes I’ve made on John Wyclif over the past decade, with help from Oliver O’Donovan. From his talk “The Human Person, Economics, and Catholic Social Thought” On the term “communication.” His view of lordship does not … Continue reading →

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Rutherford’s Scotist Ethics

Posted on December 18, 2016 by J. B. Aitken

“Samuel Rutherford’s Euthyphro Dilemma” in Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland by Simon J. G. Burton Cameron’s Thesis: Things that are good in themselves have a much stronger binding authority than adiaphora. Rutherford’s Rejoinder: Constitution of the divine image is dependent on the … Continue reading →

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Turretin on the civil magistrate

Posted on December 1, 2016 by J. B. Aitken

A godly magistrate can call a council, for magistrates are nurse-fathers to the church (Isa. 49:21-23, p. 308). On The Civil Magistrate Thirty Fourth Question:  What is the right of the Christian magistrate about sacred things, and does the care … Continue reading →

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