The Narthex

Before proceeding to the Block Universe Controversy, I’ll give some background material to make time, as a variable in space-time, intelligible in the context of relativity theory. If the reader finds sections of this article too challenging, please skim those sections but be sure to read the final section…

"For in him we live and move and have our being" is a stunning truth. It comes to us from Epimenides, the legendary ancient Greek poet. St. Paul cites it in his Mars Hill sermon to the searching and often skeptical Athenians (see Acts 17:28). The idiosyncratic Bishop George Berkeley…

"What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know." -- St. Augustine of Hippo

At 96 I sometimes view time as an enemy, not a friend. So…

Baptisms and funerals -- and how I wish there were more of the first and fewer of the second! -- underscore our historical character. Consider, as well, how we mark an historic event by asking, for example, “Where were you when Leo XIV stepped forth as the first American pope?”…

“A place for everything and everything in its place” is a worthy maxim, if we know who and where we are. Often, though, we know neither. Or so it seems. Catholics believe that the human person is an incarnate spirit, a union of body and soul. But what kind of…

“All men by nature desire to know,” reads the first line of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. A bit of clarification is in order. Not all of the many students I’ve taught wanted to know about this bold claim. For some (like Bubba in the back row) it’s TMI, too much information. And…

As befits an octogenarian, I’ve been known to say, “Back in the day…,” but now and again a wise guy asks, “Just when was that?” So, to be more precise, I’ll refer to “the halcyon days of yore.” Nowadays, sadly, it has fallen on me to come to the defense…

Of late, there is an epidemic of excitement. Commerce crackles with it. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry is, respectively, so excited to be the new realtor in the neighborhood, the new car dealer in town, or the new sales chief for Gizmo, Inc. But wait! Every Tess, Kate, and Sally…

If the celebrated humanist Erasmus could pen the remarkable In Praise of Folly (1511), dedicating it to Thomas More, perhaps at this late date I can post a plug for the footnote. Think of adoxographia.[1] For a start, without the footnote, the heft of law journals would be…

It began for us in a garden, the Garden of Eden. But it was there, through our first parents, that we fell. Try as we might, we cannot go back to that idyll. Still, when the news turns to noise, when the pundits become ponderous, I head for my wife’s…

“Sharper than any two-edged sword” is how St. Paul characterizes God’s Word (Hebrews 4:12). If we are to show Scripture the reverence it is due, we must read it with sober care. In addressing the question of the authority of the State, Paul gives us a text that demands our…

"What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun." So Ecclesiastes tells us. There’s a truth here, and the lament finds an echo in the voices of those who discover how deeply weary this world…

“Pleasure is what makes us human,” or so a bold new TV advert tells us. Well, then, AI doesn’t make the cut. Isn’t Fido, though, still a candidate? Not so. While the dog may be man’s best friend, anyone whose best friend is a dog needs help, and from a…

Once upon a time, when I was but a tween, the Everly Brothers sang “Dream, Dream, Dream,” and crooned “Whenever I want you, all I have to do is…” Yes, that’s right, “Dream, Dream, Dream.” But there was a downside: “Only trouble is, gee whiz, I’m dreamin’ my life away.”…

The “jurisprudence” of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, was the subject of an extended essay by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. It’s worth reading (link below). Brown Jackson has repeatedly denounced her colleagues -- including fellow liberals Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor…