In a Beehive Far, Far Away

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Max Gladstone doesn’t think that the human-looking creatures in Star Wars can be humans. After all, they inhabit a galaxy far, far away in a distant time. Humans evolved on earth, and fairly recently. He assembles the clues to their species identity. There are few women, yet the ones who appear are princesses and queens. There’s not much about family or parentage, relations of children to parents doesn’t seem close, and that suggests “large brood sizes, short gestation periods, young ages of... Read more

In a Beehive Far, Far Away

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

What Does Christ Merit?

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The merits of Christ play a prominent role in Protestant soteriology. William Perkins captures the basic argument: God accepts the elect and rewards them at the last day “not because works can merit: but by reason of God’s favor, who thus accepts works, and in respect of the merit of Christ’s righteousness, imputed to the elect” (quoted in John Fesko, Beyond Calvin, 266). But what is the New Testament basis for this formulation? Jesus’ obedience reverses the disobedience of Adam, and... Read more

Creation and Being

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

When the four living creatures give glory to God, the 24 elders fall and prostrate themselves and sing of God’s worthiness as Creator. He is worthy to receive glory, honor, and power because “you created all things and through your will the were and are created” (Revelation 4:11). By this formula, God stands in a threefold relation to creation. 1) He is the origin of ta panta, all things. He is the active subject who creates. 2) All things were... Read more

Trinitarian Prisca theologia

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Deists didn’t think revelation necessary. The original religion was natural religion, and the original natural religion was the best. Steven Studebaker (Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism) shows that one of the leading orthodox responses to this argument was the effort to show that “natural” religion was not natural at all. It depended on an original revelation, a prisca theologia, which “was the primeval source of the so-called natural religion” (223). Studebaker summarizes the argument as presented by Edwards: “The presence... Read more

Edwards’s Social Trinity?

Last updated on: May 12, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

A few recent scholars have attempted to enlist Jonathan Edwards on the side of social Trinitarianism, most prominently Amy Plantinga Pauw in her Supreme Harmony of All. Steven Studebaker isn’t buying it, and explains why in his Jonathan Edwards’ Social Augustinian Trinitarianism. Studebaker argues that social Trinitarianism depends on a threeness-oneness paradigm according to which Western Trinitarian theology started with the one substance of God and had trouble accommodating the three Persons, while Eastern theology started from the opposite point of view.... Read more

Grateful Performance

Last updated on: May 10, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Bruce Ellis Benson argues in The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue that the distinction of “composing” and “performing” doesn’t “describe very well what musicians actually do.” In place of this “binary” scheme, he offers an “an improvisational model of music, one that depicts composers, performers, and listeners as partners in dialogue. From this perspective, music is a conversation in which no one partner has exclusive control” (x). “Classical” music provides the apparent counter-example, so Benson spends a lot of time showing that his... Read more

Grateful Performance

Last updated on: May 10, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Falling Angels

Last updated on: May 10, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

The four living creatures are “in the midst” and “around” the throne of the Enthroned one (Revelation 4:6). They continuously sing the Sanctus, and when they do the 24 elders fall down to prostrate themselves to the Enthroned one (v. 10). Given the arrangement, they cannot help but prostrate themselves to the living creatures, who constitute the throne. Then the Lamb appears “in the midst of the throne” (5:6) and takes the book, and the four living creatures join the 24... Read more

Ox, Lion, Eagle, Man

Last updated on: May 10, 2014 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

In Ezekiel and Revelation, the cherubim-living creatures are ox, lion, eagle, and man. If they represent the whole of living creation as worshipers, why are there no fish? Why two land creatures – ox and lion? Isn’t that discriminatory? Why not ox, crab, eagle, man? Other biblical lists of creatures, after all, include sea creatures: There are clean and unclean land animals, birds, swarmers, and sea-creatures (Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14). Why didn’t sea creatures merit inclusion in the cherubim? Where... Read more