Athanasius argues that “Father” is preferable to the Arian “Unoriginate” as a name for the First Person. It is more Scriptural, and it also names the First Person by reference to God the Son rather than by reference to the creation. Plus, “Father” is the liturgical name for the First Person: “when He teaches us to pray, He says not, ‘When you pray, say, O God Unoriginate,’ but rather, ‘When you pray, say, Our Father, which art in heaven.’ And it was His... Read more
Over the past sixty years, writes Dambisa Moyo ( Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa ), Africa has received over $1 trillion in aid. Study after study concludes that it has had minimal, or even negative effects on Africa’s economies: One study finds that there is no impact on growth, another that aid is actually inversely related to savings, another that aid is used on consumption rather than investment. ”Over... Read more
Hilary Clinton had some stiff opposition last week in Pakistan. Everywhere she went in her dazzling blue pants suit, Pakistanis raged about US policy in Afghanistan and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. One woman pointedly asked, Do the US drone bombings that kill Pakistani civilians count as terrorism? Clinton of course said No. On most definitions of terrorism, Clinton’s was the right answer. Terrorists deliberately target civilians. Bombs from NATO, mainly US, drones and jets are aimed at terrorists. We have... Read more
Mike Bull responds to my comments on Athanasius’ discussion of purity and bodily secretions: “I agree with Luther, but isn’t the point more that what comes out is ‘worthless”? Moving beyond the Old Testament pedagogical purpose of ceremonial uncleanness, affirming the goodness of bodies does not necessarily include any goodness of bodily secretions. We still judge them to be a stench, not incense. Our food, for instance, like Adam, is ‘broken in two’ to make something new. The sewer, as... Read more
Athanasius insists that the Father must have an eternal Son because the Father’s essence could never have been imperfect: “if He is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the essence of the Father imperfect ( ateles ), that what is proper to it should be added afterwards.” By contrast, human beings, as creatures in time, beget over time, one generation following another, to complete the imperfection of their nature ( ateles tes phuseos ).... Read more
From Richard Wilbur’s “Lying”: In the strict sense, of course, We invent nothing, merely bearing witness To what each morning brings again to light: Gold crosses, cornices, astonishment Of panes, the turbine-vent which natural law Spins on the grill-end of the diner’s roof, Then grass and grackles or, at the end of town In sheen-swept pastureland, the horse’s neck Clothed with its usual thunder, and the stones Beginning now to tug their shadows in And track the air with glitter.... Read more
Canon Press is having a Fall Sale, which you can read about here: http://www.canonpress.com/shop/ Read more
Perhaps the most obvious and easiest resolution of the conundrums that Augustine explores is a perichoretic one. Does the Father have wisdom “in Himself”? Yes, because the Wisdom that is the Son dwells in Him by the Spirit. Does the Father possess His being “in Himself”? Yes, because the Son is the fullness of His deity, and the Son indwells Him through the Spirit. Vice versa: Does the Son have wisdom considered in Himself? Yes, because what is “in Himself”... Read more
1 Corinthians 1:24 says that Christ is the power and wisdom of God. Augustine spends two books of de Trinitate trying to figure out what that means. In Book 6, he tries out the notion that the Father’s power and wisdom is simply the power and wisdom that He begets as Son, so that the Father is wise only by virtue of the begotten wisdom, powerful by virtue of begotten power, great by virtue of begotten greatness, etc. In general,... Read more
Augustine argues ( de Trinitate 5.1.6) that claims about human beins are spoken either secundum substantiam or secundum accidens . The latter category includes relational terms, statements about us ad aliquid , with reference to another. That is, for humans, in contrast to God, relational terms are accidents, changeable. God never became Father or Son; I did, and so for me these relationships are accidental to my substance. For us (in Edmund Hill’s translation) “friendships, proximities, subordinations, likenesses, qualities, and... Read more
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