The biblical writers don’t know how to end a story. Genesis 22, one of the best-known and most dramatic of biblical texts, the story of Abraham’s interrupted sacrifice of Isaac, is a case in point. Give the episode to a Hollywood script writer and the thing would end with a tearful reunion between Isaac and Sarah, the entire household of Abraham looking on beaming and applauding, followed by a quiet denouement, a scene of Abraham contemplatively watching the sun set... Read more
Matthew Mason of Capitol Hill’s Church of the Resurrection argues for using biblical language in our talk about sex at the Trinity House site. Read more
Time and change are persistent puzzles in metaphysics. How can something be “the same” when all of its properties have changed? A number of philosophers defend a “four-dimensional” metaphysics that incorporates temporal change into the very definition of an object. For four-dimensionalists, things have not only spatial but also temporal “parts,” and the thing is the sum of both sorts of parts. Theodore Sider ( Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time (Mind Association Occasional Series) ) explains the basics... Read more
In The Marrow of Theology , William Ames describes the relationship between Christ and the Church: “The relationship is so intimate that not only is Christ the church’s and the church Christ’s, Song of Sol 2:16, but Christ is in the church and the church in him, John 15:4; 1 John 3:24. Therefore, the church is mystically called Christ, 1 Cor 12:12, and the Fullness of Christ, Eph 1:23. The church is metaphorically called the bride and Christ the bridegroom;... Read more
Edwards writes: “Christ’s love – that is, His Spirit is actually united to the faculties of their souls. So it properly lives, acts, and exerts its nature in the exercise of their faculties.” There’s a great deal to say, and to like, and to wonder at, about that statement. Christ love is His Spirit. Christ’s love, the Spirit, is “actually united” to the soul of the believer, in uniting with the soul He is united with the faculties of the... Read more
Revelation 22:14 provides a brief ordo salutis : “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.” (Note: There’s a textual variant here; the Majority Text has “blessed are those who keep His commandments.”) Let’s pick that apart. “Blessing” is the promised gift, the abundant life in communion with the Father and Son. Blessing comes to those who “wash their robes.”... Read more
Isaiah 49:2 is arranged in a neat ABAB pattern: A. He has made My mouth like a sharp sword (weapon) B. In the shadow of His hand He has concealed ( chava’ ) Me (hiding); A’. And He has also made Me a select arrow (weapon), B’. He has hidden ( satar ) Me in His quiver (hiding). Two comments: First, the connection of B and B’ suggests a double parallel. The shadow of the Lord’s hand that hides is... Read more
Mark Horne continues his studies in Romans at the Trinity House site. Read more
Prior to the founding of America, argues Hannah Arendt in On Revolution , political orders were justified and legitimated by appeal to absolutes: “a divinity, not nature but nature’s God, not reason but a divinely informed reason” gave validity to political order and buttressed political power. Over time, the early colonists were pressured by circumstance to abandon this tradition and to settle on something else. Arendt argues that, in some opposition to Enlightenment hostility to tradition, they settled on a... Read more
Theory, Nietzsche argued, arises from the will to “correct existence.” Taking his cues from Nietzsche, Lyotard describes the difference between “pious” and “pagan” theorizing. The former is guilty of Nietzsche’s charge: Since Plato, Lyotard argues, philosophers have attempted to formulate a perfect theory of justice or freedom on the grounds that such theorization is a prerequisite for instantiating those values in practice. The result, though, is the opposite. Theoretical constructs of justice and freedom remain ideals, never actualized. Pious theory... Read more
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