Dicit mihi homo: “Intellegam ut credam”. Respondeo: “Crede ut intellegas”[1]   — Augustine, Sermo 43 Sed inrideant nos fortes et potentes, nos autem infirmi et inopes coniteamur tibi[2]  — Augustine, Confessions I went off to college with a head full of new learning, and high spirits on account of it. I had only a few years prior discovered that there was much gain in reading ‘old, dead theologians,’ and so left for college with a modest

The year 2017 saw a flurry of publications on Protestantism, the Reformation, and its various theological traditions. Some were good. Many were merely opportunistic. The recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Reformed Theology, edited by Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, is not merely opportunistic. This volume is rather clearer-headed regarding its aims, organization, and content than many of those that made an appearance in the publishing frenzy of 2017. Though not opportunistic, I

Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All, On whom those fainter beames of love did fall; Marry those loves, which in youth scattered bee On fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to thee.         –  John Donne   Over the last few posts (first, second, and third) I’ve been tracing a trajectory concerning the classical question of ethics. I have not, in this tracing, attempted to argue a historical development so much

In my first and second posts in this brief series, I raised the classical question of ethics and walked through at least part of Plato’s and Aristotle’s answers. While gleaning much from them, I argued that neither help us much in our encounter with death. I need to be clear on this point. I am not critiquing them for not giving a full or adequate account of the afterlife. Although I suppose an argument like

For we think of a thing, in one sense, when we think of the word that signifies it, and in another sense, when we understand the very thing itself. -Anselm, Proslogion, IV Problems with Comparative Studies I’ve noted in another post the resurgence of interest in Thomas Aquinas and Thomism among Protestants. One ‘type’ or genre of writing that is popular in this resurgence is what I’ll call a comparative approach. This approach asks what Thomas (or

In my first post, I noted that—to the question of what whole way of life makes for the most worthwhile life—Plato proposed it must be the just life; the life of the one internally ordered toward the Good. In this post, I’ll consider briefly Aristotle’s musings on the same question. As stated in part I, the purpose of this is not so much historical survey or a ‘rereading’ of these thinkers and their respective positions.

Introduction As summer turns to fall, I always become more reflective. Perhaps it’s my age. Perhaps it’s the pandemic. Perhaps it’s this new stage of my life. Perhaps it’s just, as Pascal would say, the grandeur and misery of being human. Whatever the reason, this fall I’ve been thinking about the good life. What makes for human happiness? That is the classical question of ethics, of course. I am not going to attempt anything like

The basic meaning of the verb ‘to reveal’ is something like, ‘to make known, to disclose, to bring to attention, to lay open.’ There are a couple of ways that we use the term, one obvious, the other a bit more subtle. Take, for example, the sentence, “the clouds drifted eastward, revealing the full brilliance of the sun.” That’s the typical way we use the word. Something hidden becomes manifest; something unclear is shown more

Why squint, O eyes, which love the night, At grey bodies blurred that creep? What hope have you to see the form Of light itself? Veni, Spiritus, da tuis fidelibus sacrum septenarium.[1] Dispel this seven-fold dark.   Love for pleasure inordinate Downward tends me on broken wings. ’Til pierced my flesh with your fear be, I Wallow low. Sancte Spiritus, doce principium sapientiae nobis.[2] Hands kept from evil grasp good.   With sinner’s crowd I

In Part I of this two-part series on contextual theology, I set about addressing the question: What is the primary context, the fundamental context, of Christian theology? Because the Triune God is the object of theology, I argued, the context of the study of God must first, i.e. fundamentally, be God (for God is, to speak improperly, his own context). Because the Triune God is essentially communicative, there is the possibility for creatures to be

I recently wrote a minimal critique of one aspect of the contextualized theology of Jürgen Moltmann. This engendered an article-sized rejoinder comment. I would like to thank Chris Warne for the time he spent crafting his comments. It was clearly a labor of love. The substance of the comments, however, I found somewhat less beneficial. For example, to Chris’s challenging me to show where Moltmann has deviated from the tradition, need I do more than

The past month or so has seen the virtual world ablaze with comments about another high profile, evangelical-Catholic ecumenical…what shall I call it…‘incident.’ I am normally loathe to chime in on such occasions of internet natter. Only rarely do I judge them worthy of notice, rarer still do I find them worthy of attention. Perhaps rarest of all do I judge myself as having anything of worth to add. But the case of influential Protestant,

How the birds must puzzle as they fly above the Midwest, the Northwest; When they fly over the Great Plains, the Great Mountains.   I flew over the Great Plains. There I saw the grid of man Laid out in straight lines marking plots and straight roads making access a higher priority than aesthetic. To like graph paper we have turned these plains, Upon which to chart yield production and calculate field efficiency; Upon which

Christopher Warne has recently given us something to think about in his first and second takes on Moltmann’s challenge to the doctrine of God’s impassibility. There were many things that caught my eye over these two posts. Here is one. Warne claims that, on the point of God’s impassibility at least, Moltmann comes to “a unique conclusion, that he “rejects the traditional doctrine,” that he “takes a new approach,” that he “makes a unique statement,”

John Dupré was, at the time of this book’s writing, a philosopher of science at Stanford University (now at the University of Exeter) and was part of the so-called Stanford School of the philosophy of science. This book targets ‘imperialistic scientism,’ which Dupré defines as “the tendency for a successful scientific idea to be applied far beyond its original home, and generally with decreasing success the more its application is expanded” (16). Thesis The thesis

Writing in the mid-twentieth century, Dorothy Sayers observed that the church in her part of the world weighed triflingly little in the estimation of its cultured despisers. This was not, however, because its archaic teachings had been finally unmasked as ‘irrelevant’ to progressed, Modern society. No, she insisted, the problem was precisely the opposite: its ancient truths had been hidden from Modern society’s sight: Let us, in heaven’s name, drag out the divine drama from

“The sands have shifted! The sands have shifted!” Walid shouted as he hurriedly drew back the curtain of the buryuut hajar. “It will be well to change our course, Alim, everything looks different. What I once knew, I know no more. We cannot know where we are; we cannot know where we are going. The storms, the harmattan winds; the landscape is utterly different. How are we to navigate?” Abdul-Alim followed Walid out to survey.

The Scriptures are somewhat ambiguous about how fully God can be known by human beings. On the one hand, the Son has revealed God to be our Father and has pioneered the path of faith—offering unprecedented access through grace. Jesus teaches that the pure in heart “will see God” (Matt 5:8). Likewise in the first Johannine epistle: “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do

Creation Care and Evangelicals Discussion of issues related to the environment among American Evangelicals faces a number of challenges. Let me bring three important ones to the fore. First, American Evangelicalism notoriously lacks any kind of overarching governmental bodies or institutions. The best it’s been able to muster so far are alliances or coalitions of various sorts. But these hardly serve to govern evangelicalism as a whole, nor could they. This means that works coming

Or, Reflections on the Gospel of John in Response to Leonard Cohen I hunger. Bread fills me. I hunger again. I thirst. Wine makes the heart glad. My thirst is not quenched. I question. I have seen all done under the sun. Truth eludes me. I love As the wonder of a man with a virgin. Yet the unity is cracked. I live, Tasting, hearing, smelling, seeing, feeling all these mundane joys, Yet I die.