Jesus reads Isaiah 61 in His first sermon at Nazareth, and says that He fulfills prophets’ promise of an anointed Servant to preach good news to the poor (Luke 4). It is a programmatic sermon for Luke’s gospel, who highlights Jesus’ ministry among the marginal and weak. In the ensuing exchange with the people of Nazareth, Jesus refers to Elijah’s ministry to the widow of Zarephath and Elisha’s cleansing of Naaman. Apparently the mission to the poor encompasses ministry to... Read more
Brian Leftow ends his 1995 Modern Schoolman article with this: “Anselm’s appeal to fittingness, then, might serve to undermine the claim the value of efficiency has on God’s choices. For if beauty can trump efficiency, it could be a rational virtue for a perfectly wise being to act inefficiently, if by doing so He created sufficient beauty . . . . There seems no reason at all that another sort of beauty could not trump elegance. If so, elegance need... Read more
In a couple earlier posts , I took a look at the aesthetic dimensions of Anselm’s theory of the atonement. He certainly begins with a patristic atonement theory stressing the poetic symmetry of fall and redemption, and aesthetic concepts keep cropping up all along. But it seems that he abandons the aesthetic structure for something else, something more rational. Leftow doesn’t think so, and points to places where Anselm speaks of the “rational fittingness” of the atonement. For instance, it... Read more
In a 1995 article in Modern Schoolman on Anselm’s theory of atonement, Brian Leftow offers this list of “incidental benefits” that, Anselm claims, follow from God’s choice to save through incarnation and cross. It’s a demonstration of the “elegance” of the atonement. The rest of this post is directly quoted from Leftow. —it offers us mercy while still respecting intuitions about fairness, e.g. that it is prima facie unfair to count sinful humans equal to sinless angels if humanity has... Read more
According to Bavinck ( Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume , 442-3), vicarious satisfaction means that Christ gives to God all that He demands from us, which we are incapable of giving: “The demand posed by God to fallen humanity was twofold: one, that humans would keep the law perfectly, and two, that they would redress the violation of it by punishment. The benefits Christ obtained for us are twofold: to bear our punishment and to obtain for us the... Read more
A characteristically hilarious rant from Tom Shone about movie directors as “masters”: “it must be a terrific thrill to boss people around like that, and be rude to the press, and stick conversations about life, plants, astronomy into a movie on someone else’s dime just because one can, because one is a master filmmaker and all that, although I’ve never gotten the vicarious thrill from watching those things that some people do — films bent to the will of a... Read more
Take a look at James Jordan’s second essay in a series on “Continuing the Reformation” at the Trinity House site. Read more
INTRODUCTION Isaiah prophesies the Babylonian exile, but also promises that Yahweh’s Servant will deliver Israel not only from Babylon but from the numbing effects of her own idolatry. THE TEXT “Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce, whom I have put away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you? For your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgressions your mother has been put away . . . .” (Isaiah 50:1-11). (more…) Read more
Colossians 2:16-17: Let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day – things which are a shadow of what is to come, but the body of Christ. When Paul talks about regulations of food and drink and time-keeping, he is always talking about the old Levitical system, which is full of prohibitions: “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.” Paul... Read more
Food fads come and go, especially in America. Not so long ago, white bread was the miracle food that would perfect and purify. For many today, organic is savior. Food was an issue in the early church, and Paul gives us coordinates for navigating through. First, do not let yourself be judged, and do not judge concerning food. Don’t judge your brothers who prefer the Coop, don’t let yourselves be judged for going to MacDonald’s. You aren’t judge. God is.... Read more
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