Participation

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 3:22 pm By Peter Leithart

Maarten Wisse scores some points against Trinitarian “participationist” ontology in his 2011 Trinitarian Theology beyond Participation: Augustine’s De Trinitate and Contemporary Theology (T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology) . But there are irritations. Early on, he points out that participationist theologies attempt to redress the modern disenchantment of the world. Wisse argues, rather boldly, that a certain kind of disenchantment is inherent in Christian faith, and I agree. But he describes the participationist response this way: “Against the idea of... Read more

Invocation to Assent

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 2:42 pm By Peter Leithart

Vickers ( Invocation and Assent: The Making and the Remaking of Trinitarian Theology ) gives a thorough and challenging account of the collapse of Trinitarian theology in seventeenth-century English Protestantism. He thinks that the collapse can be traced to three roots: The appeal to Scripture as the rule of faith; the shift in the understanding of faith from “trust” to “assent”; and the assumption about language and the necessity of “clear and intelligible” propositions. Vickers traces the formation of this... Read more

Early Trinitarianism

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 11:56 am By Peter Leithart

Building on the work of Robert Jenson and especially JND Kelly, Jason Vickers argues in Invocation and Assent: The Making and the Remaking of Trinitarian Theology that the proto-creedal affirmations of Trinitarian theology that are found in the various “rules of faith” specifically aim to undergird confidence in the efficacy of the rites and liturgies of the church for salvation. They are not simply “summaries of Scripture” (they leave out Israel entirely) nor simply doctrinal identity markers. Rather, they identify... Read more

Vestigium trinitatis

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 11:15 am By Peter Leithart

“Despite the contemporary belief that ‘the normal sacrificial cult is a cult without revelation or epiphany,’” writes Kimberley Patton in her Religion of the Gods: Ritual, Paradox, and Reflexivity , “primary evidence suggests that the Greeks believed that the gods both attended and responded to sacrifice. In Book 12 of the Odyssey , the island Phaiakians are described as being so blessed that when they sacrificed they could actually see the gods’ huge, luminous forms superintending.” That interests Patton, but... Read more

History of Night

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 10:34 am By Peter Leithart

The cultural history of night is the subject of two recent books. Roger Ekirch’s At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past is a broad history of the uses and symbolism of night prior to the invention of electric lighting. One of his most fascinating discoveries was the habit of segmented sleep, the practice of dividing the night into “first” and “second” sleep, with a period of wakefulness in between. This custom had come to an end by the mid-seventeenth century... Read more

Verne the Prophet

Last updated on: September 3, 2012 at 8:45 am By Peter Leithart

Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100 is a breathless book. In the next hundred years, we’ll approach godlikeness and transcend human limits: “we will be able to manipulate objects with the power of our minds. Computers, silently reading our thoughts, will be able to carry out our wishes. We will be able to move objects by thought alone, a telekinetic power usually reserved only for the... Read more

Eucharistic meditation

Last updated on: September 2, 2012 at 7:20 am By Peter Leithart

Exodus 33:13: Moses said, Consider too that this nation is Your people. When Israel breaks covenant by making and worshiping a golden calf, Yahweh is ready to start over. He warns Moses to stand aside, and at the same time promises to make Moses a new Abraham, the father of a new Israel (Exodus 32:10). Israel has no future; but Moses does. In all that follows, Moses consistently rejects this proposal and reminds Yahweh that, stubborn and stiff-necked as they... Read more

Exhortation

Last updated on: September 2, 2012 at 6:44 am By Peter Leithart

When Moses comes down from Sinai, he puts a veil over his shining face. The people couldn’t look at God’s glory, Paul tells us, because their hearts were hard. That was then. Paul himself is in a very different place. He speaks openly, without a veil. He doesn’t hide the glory of God in the face of Jesus. And it’s not only Paul: (more…) Read more

Military gift-culture

Last updated on: August 31, 2012 at 12:59 pm By Peter Leithart

John Hendershot sends the following in response to my essay on gift and gratitude at firstthings.com today. The rest of this post is from Mr Hendershot. Your article this morning in First Things reminded me of an incident in my childhood. The culture of gift giving is not unknown in American society; I was raised in such a culture. What might surprise you is that the culture in question existed in the United States Army. My father was a career... Read more

Mode of existence

Last updated on: August 31, 2012 at 11:17 am By Peter Leithart

Barth has been charged with modalism, partly because he chose to use the phrase “mode of existence” rather than the term “person” to describe the three in God. The charge doesn’t stick, mainly because Barth clearly understands what modalism is, and claims that it amounts to atheism and a denial of revelation. Even the phrase itself isn’t modalist. Barth does not call the Father a “mode of operation” or “mode of revelation” of God. The Father is rather a “mode... Read more

What does "Eli" mean in Hebrew?