Creative Retrieval

In this episode, I discuss the challenge raised by Glaucon concerning (a) the origin of justice, (b) that people are just only unwillingly, (c) the unjust life is more preferable than the just life.  I also discuss the relationship between the city and the individual soul, the former being a macroscopic image (or icon) of the latter.

I discuss the second half of book 1 of Plato's Republic, wherein we find a discussion about justice as the virtue which brings unity out of plurality; which is the activity of rulers.

I discuss the first 1/2 to 2/3rds of the first book of Plato's Republic .  

This is the first of a series on Plato's Republic.  I will devote a few episodes to each book of Plato's Republic.  In the first episode of this series, I talk about the centrality of the part/whole relation in Plato's thought (especially the Republic ) and argue that it is central to an understanding what makes human's happy; since it leads to an understanding of what we are and hence t...

We turn to consider the three Thomistic notions of Being (active, relational, and communal) and discuss how Clarke unfolds the notion of person in light of those three characteristics of being.  St. Thomas Aquinas's notion of person begins to be unfolded in this episode. Also, please rate and review the podcast to help others find it!

We talk about chapter 1 of Norris Clarke's contemporary classic St. Thomas Aquinas Lecture, Person and Being ).  In this chapter we discuss why (i) being is self-communicative, (ii) being is relational, and (iii) being is receptive and communal.  

Please share and subscribe! We finish our discussion of St. Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs. (We will be working through W. Norris Clarke's Person and Being next week...I highly recommend reading along with us!)

Please share and subscribe! We continue our discussion and move onto discuss pages 243-263 of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs. (We will be working through the Thomistic metaphysical work by W. Norris Clarke, Person and Being in two weeks...I highly recommend reading along with us!)

We discuss pages 222-243 of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs .  

We continue with our discussion on the Commentary on the Song of Songs.

We continue our discussion of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs .   Please consider supporting our work: https://www.patreon.com/creative_retrieval

We begin our discussion of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs.   We are using Danielou's book, From Glory to Glory . Please consider supporting our work: https://www.patreon.com/creative_retrieval

We discuss the Song of Song s in the manner of a creative retrieval.  Also, we are wondering if we should keep posting episodes...let us know your thoughts! Take the poll or email us at creativeretrieval@gmail.com

We finish up Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses .  Next time we discuss the book of the Song of Songs as preparation for looking at Nyssa's most mystical work - the Commentary on the Song of Songs.

This episode is killer!  We discuss what it means to be satisfied in one's eternal progress in God, why we can't see God face to face and live, and other mystical insights of St. Gregory. We will finish the Life of Moses in the next episode.  After the next episode we will move into Gregory of Nyssa's Commentary on the Song of Songs. What books should we discuss next? Leave your thoughts...

In this podcast, we discuss pages 78-97 of Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses.  If you have questions, thoughts about Nyssa or any of the things we discuss, please do not hesitate to email us and share your thoughts! Next time we will go on to discuss pages 97 - 120 (one of the best/most famous sections of the book). What books should we discuss next? Leave your thoughts here!

Here we go on to discuss pages 55-78 of Gregory of Nyssa's Life of Moses .  If you have questions, thoughts about Nyssa or any of the things we discuss, please do not hesitate to email us and share your thoughts! Next time we will go on to discuss pages 78-97.   Let us know what books we should discuss in the future: https://www.patreon.com/posts/what-books-we-in-56233341

We begin the incredibly influential book of mystical theology by St. Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses .  On our reading, this book proposes that the life of Moses as a temporal icon of salvation history, so that all of salvation history is recapitulated and imaged in Moses; moreover, we argue that this is what the Christian life is: a telling of the entirety of salvation history from a par...

In this episode, we discuss St. Gregory of Nyssa's work "On what it means to call oneself a Christian."  In the next episode, we will be moving into a series of episodes on Nyssa's more mystical work, _The Life of Moses_. If you want to read along while you listen, you can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Gregory-Nyssa-Classics-Western-Spirituality/dp/0809121123/ref=sr_1_2?crid=7733...

We finish up St. Gregory of Nyssa's "On the Christian Mode of Life."  This is a work which all Christian's should read.  Next week we will discuss St. Gregory of Nyssa's "On what it means to call oneself a Christian." Starting September 28th, we will be reading through the entirety of St. Gregory of Nyssa's mystical theological work: Life of Moses (buy it here to read along).  

Having finished the Brothers Karamazov , we begin to discuss some of the best works of the great Cappadocian father, St. Gregory of Nyssa (335-395).  We begin with his short (but profound) work, "On the Christian Mode of Life."  We discuss this work in two parts. This work can be found in the following collection: https://www.amazon.com/Saint-Gregory-Ascetical-Fathers-Church/dp/081320969...

This is our last conversation about the book.  Lots of people hate how the book ends - but I (Jaeger) think it is one of the most Beautiful (in the transcendental way) endings imaginable to one of the best novels ever written.  You can only understanding the ending if you go back to the beginning, the "From the Author" note.

We talk with Br. Maximilian again, as well as Christian Duran about the first few chapters of Book 12.

We talk with Br. Maximilian - outside St. Benedict's Abbey - about the last three chapters of the "Ivan" Book.  Our discussion centers around "The Devil. Ivan's Nightmare."  If the sound is a bit soft, we apologize as we were outside.

This was a great conversation about Ivan and what he thinks about himself, Dimitri and what he thinks about God and suffering, and what Alyosha  thinks about his brothers.