Bruce Charlton's Notions

* I spend a fair bit of time reading volumes of selected and collected letters - another arrived yesterday: the writer Robert Southey, poe...

* A major difference between real science (as it was) and scientific research  (as it is now) can be stated in the form that real scientis...

* One of the main things modern man lacks is unity: The Good all at once and integrated . * For generations the Church of England had exa...

* The basis for philosophy is a recognition that there must be that which is eternal and unchanging for there to be knowledge. If everyt...

* I have been re-reading Humphrey Carpenter's authorized Tolkien biography, which I have read many times before - but not for quite a ...

* A comment from WmJas stimulated what seems the clarifying insight that the 'solution' to perplexity over free will is to underst...

* Free will - the capacity for choice that is neither determined nor random but a property of personal will - is central to Christianity, ...

From Thomas Traherne (c 1636 - c1674)   Centuries of Meditations * Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehens...

* For most of my life I had a false understanding of the Christian belief in everlasting life: I thought it was about living an eternal li...

* Over at the Notion Club Papers blog: http://notionclubpapers.blogspot.com/2011/09/tolkien-and-women-word.html *

* Although Charles Williams was superficially a highly sociable man, full of energy and apparent optimism; deep down he was far more pess...

* Was the medieval time merry ? - as suggested by Chesterton - or was it miserable as portrayed in popular culture and indeed in popular h...

* The first Christians wanted to be saved. Later Christians wanted to be saved and to be happy. Later still, Christians wanted to be h...

* The fact that slavery was accepted as a given throughout most of the history of Christianity http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011...

* I have read a large number of autobiographies - but have not re-read many, because most are not much good. As a genre, autobiography is ...

* My contrarian position is that I am against eugenics, and against anti-eugenics: http://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-euge...

* Selah is an untranslated Hebrew word of uncertain meaning found in the Psalms. My impression is that Selah means something like ...

* I have quite forgotten. * When I was a kid, dyed hair was rare: something done by young women trying to attract attention (the bleac...

* It narrows it, of course! Or more exactly, travel amplifies existing tendencies to shallowness, distractability and alienation. * ...

* From my recent 'pilgrimage' to Inklings sites in Oxford JRR Tolkien: Jack and Warnie Lewis: Charles Williams: Hugo...

* Q: Is asking questions good or bad? A: Neither: it depends on the reason for asking. Are we questioning from belief, or from skeptic...