May fragments

Mary had her birthday. Stephen and I bought her an artichoke sandwich and a pie, and Martin bought her some cheese puffs. … The upstairs has been rather hot; Bianca, our dear furball, has been lingering in the cool basement. Missing her, we’ve begun conditioning the air. … This week is my week off, between school terms. I wish I could travel. “You could explore the ruins of Detroit,” say Sabby. “You could clean the basement,” says Martin (everyone’s so archaeological).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I bought The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. I agree with this reviewer:

While reading [Alexander Pruss’s] very intricate essay [on the Eucharist], it occurred to me that many medieval scholastic philosophers, if brought into the present age and given a copy of this book, would be overjoyed — while the traditional enemies of scholasticism would see most of this book as logical nitpicking.

Pruss is the leading theorist of the Real Presence (and of other Romish oddities). His Handbook essay focuses on how Christ could, at one and the same time, be in different places, e.g. in different communion wafers across the world. This problem has some pedigree; Leibniz and Aquinas offer solutions. But what non-nerd ever gave it as the main reason for doubting transubstantiation? Pruss’s own solution refers to time travel. Here is theorizing which is both inelegant and useless.