- P A P E R S -

“There could be no genuine piety towards the Lord of all, in the man who despised the gift of Philosophy”

- St. Gregory Thaumaturgus -

Althusser and Damascene:

Textual Images of Contingent Matter

The Iconographer and the Exegete, both labourers in the hermeneutic (re)production of the image. Through their respective mediums of shape and word, they seek to authentically expound the mystery of the event being depicted. The image presents to us an encounter of the event, the arriving of that which is foreshadowed.

Conversing with the Dead:

The Play within Tradition

Hans-Georg Gadamer and Georges Florovsky. Two thinkers with two concepts: a fusion of horizons, and neo-patristic synthesis; which seek to disrupt modernity’s strong presence over the past. Not only that, but in reclaiming tradition they also found a creativity, a force for innovation through communion.

The Roulette of Creation:

Toward an Ontology of Freedom

At the dawn of the twentieth century two very different existential philosophers sought to awaken the discourse on freedom from the numbness of determinism and scientism. Bergson and Berdyaev saw in the rich and heavy experience of life something science could only fail to do justice to, and it should fall to the philo-sopher to champion this cause.

Divine Darkness: God In

The Absence Of Theology

The words we determine for God; form the God determined by words: Dare we speak of God? The possibility and potency of this question, lies not only in what can be said of God, but how it can be spoken; whether through positive terms of affirmation, or through finding a way beyond words by negating their defining ability.

Derrida’s fear of the “at-home”:
The Incarnation on a knife-edge

Derrida was well aware of the paradox of hospitality; the simultaneous possibility and impossibility of hosting the other; being oneself while accommodating the stranger. This was for him, an endless and irresolvable paradoxical relationship of gift and reception that was without limit.

Academic without a course,

Philosophies without a cause.

These works are illegitimate;

This is my message in a bottle.

[BENJAMIN MORRIS]

MESSAGE

Papers

[RESEARCH INTERESTS]

Research

Continental Philosophy

Pascal. Nietzsche. Bergson.

Eastern Orthodox Theology

Byzantine. Neo-Patristic Synthesis.

Postmodern Theory

Postsecularism. Deconstruction. New Materialism.

Patristic Writings

Irenaeus. Athanasius. John Chrysostom.

CONNECT

- E X E G E S I S -

Life In The Poetics Of Death:
Irenaeus And The Taking Away Of Salvation

In Of Tragedy Hume explores how people enjoy experiencing the pain of tragic events, that were they not dramatised, would be overwhelming in their grief and catastrophe. Likewise it is the subordinate glory of the kenotic act of Christ, which renders the horror of the death of God on a cross a sublime event of salvation.

Brothers in Arms:
The Sacrifice of the Prodigal Son

In the social context of first century Palestine crowds of people came to hear Jesus teach for many reasons; as a Prophet, a wonder-worker, a renegade but also because he was an unparalleled Jewish rabbi. A key part of a rabbi's oral legacy lay in their use of parables, to begin to understand the lessons of the Prodigal Son we must first revisit the oldest set of brothers in scripture.

Being Toward Death:
Isaac's Gift Caught In Glory

We are encouraged to admire the great faith and obedience Abraham displayed, while we often have to suspend some serious ethical questions. Though it initially seems the emotional aspect is also the central tenet of the narrative, is it possible that this sentimentalism is actually distracting us from a deeper meaning?

Exegesis

A P O L E S A S