Noo is noo come. Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at Kings College London and the LMU in Munich online at

W.W. History of Philosophy. Net. Today's episode, Leading Light, Hildegard of Bingen.

When I was a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame, a joke was doing the rounds.

Notre Dame is playing football away at Boston College, and the two coaches are chatting before

the game.

The BC coach asks whether the Notre Dame Coach would like to know the result beforehand.

How's that possible? asked the Notre Dame Coach and his colleague says, just follow me.

He goes to a pay phone and feeds in $10 in quarters, then dials and hands the phone to the Notre Dame coach.

A deep voice says, This is God. What would you like to know?

Their coach asks about the result of the game and God says,

you're going to lose by a field goal.

When the game is played, the prediction proves true.

The following season, B.C BC is playing the return game at Notre Dame.

The two coaches meet again and agree to try to find out the result ahead of time.

They go to a payphone and the Notre Dame Coach slots in a single quarter.

The BC Coach says only 25 cents?

Sure, says the Notre Dame Coach. From here it's a local call.

The point of the joke is presumably coach. From here it's a local call.

The point of the joke is presumably to exalt the home of the fighting Irish at the expense

of their fellow Catholic school, Boston College, but I enjoy it in a different rather more ironic way.

It exposes the preposterous notion that God, assuming he exists, would be more strongly tied to one university than another.

I say it's preposterous, but probably not everyone back at South Bend would agree.

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