This week we are very excited to have our friend Anne Carpenter on the show! She wanted to talk about how tradition works and she brought a couple of turn of the 20th century French Catholic thinkers with her to help. After discoursing on our favorite video games, Anne told us a little bit about her book, Theo-Poetics: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Risk of Art and Being (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015). She helped us look at how Balthasar deploys poetic repetition to make important metaphysical points about the relationship of creature to the Creator. We also chatted a bit about the distinction between poetry/art and theology itself. Then we pivoted to Anne’s more recent interest in tradition, in doctrinal development, and in the theology of history. We started with John Henry Newman and his account of development, but then turn to Maurice Blondel and Charles Péguy. Anne spells out how “tradition” is Blondel’s alternative to extrinsicism and historicism and we see his influence in the theology of Vatican II. Finally, Anne shares her related insights into Péguy’s account of time, history, and revolution.

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Our theme music is “14 Ghosts II” by Nine Inch Nails, available at archive.org/details/nineinchnails_ghosts_I_IV

“14 Ghosts II” is used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license. We would like to thank Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails for the use of this track.

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