In a web article examining NT Wright’s arguments regarding Philippians 2:6, Dennis Burk writes, “If harpagmov be understood according to the above analysis, then Christ is said not to have snatched at or grasped for equality with God. Though he was himself true deity existing in the form of God , he did not try to grasp for this other aspect which he himself did not possess—namely, equality with God . On the contrary, Christ emptied himself. This emptying consisted... Read more
Ruth 1:22: So Naomi returned and with her Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, who returned from the land of Moab. And they came to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest. Ruth begins tragically. Elimelech flees from famine in Bethlehem by taking his wife and sons to Moab, where death assaults them. First Elimelech dies, and Naomi is left with her two sons. Then her sons die, and she is left with only her daughters-in-law. (more…) Read more
Ruth 1:21: Naomi said, I went out full, but Yahweh has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since Yahweh has witnessed against me and the Almighty has afflicted me? Ruth’s statement of faith is one of the most memorable and moving in Scripture. It is a statement of whole-hearted, deep attachment to Naomi, her people, her land, her God. What makes this so moving is that Ruth makes this confession, and clings to Naomi, when Naomi... Read more
Modern politics, we often think, is secular politics. Alexis de Tocqueville knew better. He observed that the French Revolution “took on the appearance of a religious revolution.” It was, he admitted, “a new kind of religion, an incomplete religion . . . without God, without ritual, and without life after death.” Like Islam, revolutionary religion “flooded the earth with its soldiers, apostles, and martyrs.” (more…) Read more
In a lecture on incarnation and kenosis, Princeton’s Bruce McCormack asks John of Damascus how he can say that every act of the God-Man is “100% human and 100% divine.” Won’t the omnipotent divine act overwhelm the human act? That’s an odd question, I think. For, given divine concurrence, the question arises not only with the incarnate Christ but with every human act; how can any human act be human, how can any avoid being “overwhelmed” by divine action? I’m... Read more
Wise cautions from de Lubac on any effort to ease the tensions that have historically existed between church and civil order: “We can without difficulty concede the point that whichever side the absorption were effected from, everything would become infinitely simpler and much more practicable – in theory, at any rate. The only question is, whether this simplicity is desirable, and whether so easy a life is really an ideal?” Read more
De Lubac quotes Thomas a Kempis to the effect that “when the consummation comes, the sacraments will be employed no more,” and explains: “Human mediation, now indispensable and of primary importance, will have no raison d’etre in the Heavenly Jerusalem; there, everyone will hear God’s voice directly and everyone will respond to it spontaneously, just as everyone will see God face to face.” This will be a “regime of perfect inwardness.” It is difficult to see how this squares with... Read more
Verse 8 returns to some of the concerns of verse 1. Evil men meditate on violence (v. 1), and they also calculate, plot, and deliberately work out how to do evil (v. 8). This, again, is not simple foolishness or naïvete. This is deliberate, planned evil. In some passages the word can refer to artistry, the artistry of those who make the furnishings of the temple and tabernacle (Exodus 26:1; 31:4; 2 Chronicles 26:14). What the Proverb envisions is an... Read more
Barth insists that the center of the New Testament is Jesus, and that without Him there is nothing to be said. The list found in 1 Corinthians 1:30 – wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption – “become a meaningless statement in spite of the high content of its predicates” without Jesus. For the writers of the New Testament, “wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption are not relevant concepts in themselves, but only as predicates of the subject Jesus.” He concedes that “more recent historical... Read more
Not according to Barth ( CD 1.2) Anselm does not move from the possibility of incarnation to its reality, but instead throughout his argument assumes the reality he’s attempting to understand: “his method cannot be called rationalistic, because of all the decisive elements by which he proves that the incarnation is possible (i.e. necessary) and so intelligible and true – his conceptions of God’s purpose with humanity, of man’s duty of obedience to God, of sin as an infinite guilt,... Read more
Leithart
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