Feb 27 2016 26 mins 1
The Didache, a profound first-century Christian text, talks about the two ways to live, one that leads to life and one that leads to death. And in this episode, I look at another way of looking at these two ways: through the notions of an "ontology of peace" and an "ontology of violence." At the risk of getting a bit too technical, I glance at Plato's theory of forms, as well as the way that Nominalism undermines faith in the Transcendent. Texts referred to in this episode include the anonymously authored Didache, Thomas O'Loughlin's The Didache, and Paul Tyson's Returning to Reality. But I'm also keeping in mind the thinking of Thomas Aquinas, Hans Urs von Balthasar (especially the first book in his The Glory of the Lord series), and David Bentley Hart's The Beauty of the Infinite. I also make reference to Simon Critchley, whose idea that philosophy begins with disappointment is something I've read in two of his books: Very Little, Almost Nothing and Faith of the Faithless.
