“Repent the day before you die,” the Rabbis said. It sounds as if they’re encouraging wickedness. We can do what we like, sin to our heart’s content, and then reverse it all with a deathbed conversion. But the Rabbis were sly. The kicker is that we can never know the day of our death, and so if we’re going to repent the day before we die, we had better repent every day. (more…) Read more
A 1974 JBL article by Karl Donfried explores some of the allegorical elements of the parable of the virgins in Matthew 25. He points out that the “door” is an important motif for Matthew: “This is an important theme for Matthew. On the eschatological day, Jesus will stand at the door (24:33) and will admit those properly prepared (Matt 25:10; 7:21). That entrance through the door is not easy is vividly stressed in 7:13-14: ‘Enter by the narrow door; for... Read more
“When her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.” That’s Genesis 25:24, and it’s talking about Rebekah pregnant with Jacob and Esau. “It came about at the time she was giving birth, that behold, there were twins in her womb.” That’s Genesis 38:27, and it’s talking about Tamar pregnant with Perez and Zerah. These are the only twins in Genesis; in both cases, there’s a reversal of primogeniture; within the tribe of Judah, the... Read more
A man had three sons who went out into the wide world to see their fortune. Everyone thought the first two sons were smart and would be successful, but the last son was an oaf, and everyone knew he would return an utter failure . . . . We know where this is going. But Jesus undermines our expectations. A man gave talents to three servants, and went off on a journey. The first two doubled their wealth, while the... Read more
Matthew doesn’t talk about wisdom and foolishness very often, and only twice does he contrast the wise ( phronimos ) to the foolish ( moros ). The first comes at the end of the sermon on the mount, where Jesus contrasts wise and foolish builders; the other comes in the parable of the virgins in 25:1-13. Structurally, the two are linked. The parable of wise and foolish builders concludes the sermon on the mount, while the parable of the virgins... Read more
Baylor’s Alexander Pruss offers this nifty Aristotelian critique of Humean natural law: “The most basic dichotomy between views of laws of nature is that between Humean views on which the laws of nature are merely descriptions of the actual states of affairs that obtain, and anti-Humean views according to which the laws of nature have modal import and describe something over and beyond correlations between actual states of affairs. The best argument against the Humean approach may well be the... Read more
“Persona est rationalis naturae individua substantia,” said Boethius in his treatise on the two natures. This has been viewed as a radically deficient definition of personhood, but Peter Simpson argues that it’s got more going for it than many imagine. In response to the charge that it relegates what really matters to us – our actual living and existence – to the secondary realm of accident, Simpson argues: (more…) Read more
David Goldhill’s article on health care reform in the current issue of the Atlantic bears the provocative title, “How American Health Care Killed My Father.” It opens with the story of his father, who died at 83 from an infection he picked up at a hospital, as he says “one of the roughly 100,000 Americans whose deaths are caused or influenced by infections picked up in hospitals.” He has a litany of complaints against hospitals: (more…) Read more
Barnes again: “For Gregory the transcendence of God includes the capacity to produce; indeed, Gregory’s conception of this capacity as a dunamis means not only that this capacity exists as a natural capacity in God, but because this capacity is the dunamis of the divine nature, GOd’s kind of existence is the kind that (re)produces.” Then this provocative kicker: “The distinction among Persons means that the inherent productivity of the divine nature has two different expressions or appropriations. The first... Read more
Michel Rene Barnes ( The Power of God: Dunamis in Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian Theology ) claims that the fourth century Trinitarian debates are not just a debate about relations but a debate about “productivity,” and thus about “power.” The question that divides Eunomius and Gregory of Nyssa, he says, is “does God possess a ‘natural’ productive capacity,” that is, a capacity to “reproduce the nature of the productive existent”? That is, “If God has a natural productive capacity, He... Read more
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