Jordan J. Ballor's Blog, page 9
November 11, 2016
Virtuous envy?
Edward Feser, with a nod to Thomas Aquinas, discusses whether there might be such a thing as virtuous Schadenfreude. As Feser puts it, “On the one hand, the suffering of a person is not as such something to rejoice in, for suffering, considered just by itself, is an evil…. However, there can be something ‘annexed’ to the suffering which is a cause for rejoicing.”
November 9, 2016
How did we get here?
In today’s Acton Commentary, I offer a brief reflection on the results of Election Day in the United States, “Politics, Character, and Competition.”
I’ve heard a lot of wisdom and a lot of foolishness in the hours since the final results were announced. The initial speeches have now been made, and we are in that in-between time, the pause of sorts between the election and the inauguration of a new president.
How did we get here? appeared first on...
November 2, 2016
Markets without limits?
Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, who is president of the Ruth Institute as well as a senior fellow in economics here at the Acton Institute, debated Peter Jaworski, a co-author of the recent book, Markets without Limits: Moral Virtues and Commercial Interests, at an event hosted by the Austin Institute.
October 31, 2016
October 14, 2016
October 11, 2016
October 10, 2016
Is taxation theft?
Last week, before the most recent news about Donald Trump and the current US presidential campaign burst onto the scene, Think Christian ran a short reflection of mine on the question of taxation. As I argue, “There is no duty to pay anything other than what we owe in taxes. But whatever we do owe we must pay in good conscience and out of a spirit of justice.”
October 5, 2016
‘Riches do not bring freedom’
The contrast between the treatments by David Bentley Hart and Dylan Pahman of the question of the intrinsic evil of “great personal wealth” this week pretty well established, I think, that in itself wealth is among the things neither forbidden nor absolutely required. In fact, as Pahman puts it at one point, perhaps “Christians should strive to have wealth from which to provide for others.”
‘Riches do not bring freedom’ appeared first on...
October 3, 2016
Love is the Truth
This ad perhaps captures Deirdre McCloskey’s observation that “love runs consumption” better than anything I have yet seen.
Coca Cola – What Goes Around comes Around from THE APA on Vimeo.
On the Love for the Poor"Gregory of Nazianzus, On the Love for the Poor The Idle Rich Questions on Work and Intellectual Development
September 30, 2016
‘You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion’
By Jacques Reich (undoubtedly based on a work by another artist) – Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1900, v. 5, p. 438, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
“You are the spring that puts all the rest in motion; they would not stir a step without you.”
