Elaine > Recent Status Updates

Finished Chapter 1

"But the fate of Garrison, still more of Ballou, in being completely unrecognized in spite of fifty years of obstinate and persistent work in the same direction, confirmed me in the idea that there exists a kind of tacit but steadfast conspiracy of silence about all such efforts" (pg. 17)

In this can be seen a piercing truth, verifiable even now, or an assured paranoia. I'm inclined to the former

Read up to 27. Interesting arguments on the part of Tertullian, most are iffy and not really amenable anymore.

Read parts 18-20. I see what I learned earlier today, about Tertullian's idea of the Son "learning". But, I think Tertullian's views are more complex than the video presented them as. It is something more like an Arianism than a Unitarianism.

Just finished the eponymous monograph that was formatted as Chapter 2. Dreadful.

Eh

Read the 32 Paths of Wisdom. It's just a bunch of correspondences between the Hebrew letter, Zodiac sign / element, and Tarot trump. Some of the Tarot correspondences seem completely arbitrary, but I suppose that's kinda how it is. But even more arbitrary is the descriptions. I got a Trinitarian vibe from Sephirot 1-3, but I struggled with the details ascribed to the other paths. Most seemed underspecified/vague.

Finished notes on Sefer Yetzirah. Some cool stuff there but, not super impressed. "The 32 Paths of Wisdom" seems like an interesting supplementary text but mot holding my breath too much

Finished chapter 1, which argues for the priority of the Johannine epistles over the gospel, drawing parallels between the epistles/Revelation and Mark, Matthew, and Papias' Logoi (or Q).

Read chapter 15. I really disliked the argument in chapter 14. Lol.

Finished Chapter 5, the last non-appendix chapter. Wraps up the book's thesis nicely. Will require a second read-through to fully appreciate (particularly in the Pneumatological arguments), but the case is compelling. DBH's utilization of Bulgakov has irrevocably changed the way I look at God, well beyond the naive logos prophorikos. I can put my angelomorphic speculations to bed, at least for now...

Finished Ch. 4. A complex read, it covered Bulgakov's theology of personhood, at once arguing against social or "3-self" strands of Trinitarianism, and for a universal concept of Personhood, at once identified with Bulgakov's Sophia and Ch. 3's prefigured notion of a _natural_ commonality between God and man. Will need to re-read to fully appreciate it, but already have I recovered some trust in "homoousious".

Yet another fantastic chaper. Many notes taken! This was an interesting push and pull for me between the Christological merits of a sound metaphysics and the existentialist appeal to aporia and equivocity nonetheless embodied. The chapter culminates in a fascinating argument for Hart's monistic view that, in solving personal devotional and theological perturbations, I can't help but feel partial to. Ready for Ch. 4.