Scripture warns us that those who do evil make for and establish the means by which they will face the consequences of their actions: Behold, the wicked man conceives evil, and is pregnant with mischief, and brings forth lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole which he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own pate his violence descends (Ps. 7:14-16 RSV). Evil is self-destructive; those who engage evil... Read more
Since God transcends all things, Dionysius explained that nothing is able to know God as he is in himself. Continuing on with the relationship between God and his creation, and the knowledge that exists between them, Dionysius wrote that nor does [God] It know existing things, qua existing. Logic can easily be employed to explain why God cannot be comprehended by any existing thing because all existing things have limits to both their potential and actual being while God has... Read more
There is a war being waged on the poor throughout the world. And the more vulnerable the poor, the greater the war. In Indianapolis, there is a movement to not only restrict panhandling, but to make it illegal for the poor, and homeless, to sit or lie down as needed in city streets. Thankfully, there has been a large outcry against such a measure, but this does not mean the seed has not been planted for the measure to eventually... Read more
“The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:26 RSV). Death is said to be the final enemy because of what death represents: the annihilation of being, the decomposition and destruction of that which is. The kingdom of death is the kingdom of corruption and decay, the kingdom of the half-life, quarter-life, and no-life. It seeks to bring everything which exists into the underwhelming emptiness of the void, the nihilistic annihilation of all things. That which is tainted... Read more
Dionysius, continuing with his presentation of the transcendence of God, explained neither is It [God] any of non-existing nor of existing things. God, in his supreme simplicity, cannot have anything outside of himself predicated to him. Existence is a quality which can be predicated, or not, to those things which have the potential to exist. When existence is predicated to some potential being it becomes an actuality instead of a mere potentiality. This predication is not applicable to God because... Read more
God’s potential is fully active and realized in his one simple eternal action. While we can logically understand what this means in abstraction, we cannot truly comprehend it. We live and exist in temporal fashion. We do not know our potential. Slowly, if we strive for it, we hope to realize it. [1] We exist in time, we act in time, and so we find our activities are constantly changing from moment to moment. We do not realize our potential... Read more
One of the great problems of our age, and indeed, of every age, is the self-deceit that comes out of pride. “When pride comes, then comes disgrace; but with the humble is wisdom” (Prov. 11:3 RSV). When we find pride as being a guiding principle of those people who hold positions of authority, their self-deception will lead not only to their own harm, but those who are under their charge. Those who stand aloof from others, those who think of... Read more
Dionysius, having explored many important names and titles traditionally used to describe God, finished off his exposition, denying them as being properly predicated to him by saying nor [can he be properly designated by] any other thing of those known to us, or to any other existing being. Goodness, divinity, truth, oneness, and beauty all help point us towards the greatness of God, but even they, in themselves, represent something of created being, and so have been shown by Dionysius... Read more
Creatio ex nihilo, creation out of, or from, nothing, was an important theological point made by early Christians as a way to preserve the absolutely unique dignity of God. It was, in many respects, another way to say there is only one God, one absolute besides which there is nothing else with him in his eternity, echoing the words of Isaiah the prophet: I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I gird... Read more
Lactantius, an educated convert to the Christian faith around 300 CE, made such a great name for himself that Constantine chose him to be the tutor of Crispus, his son. It under such auspices that he wrote his major work, The Divine Institutes, dedicating it in part to Constantine and his family. The work can be seen both as the accumulation of the Christian Latin apologetic tradition as well as the formation of a systematic theology which could be used... Read more
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