Subordinationism

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:00 am By Peter Leithart

Barth writes, “according to Subordinationist teaching even the Father, who is supposedly thought of as the Creator, is in fact dragged into the creaturely sphere. According to this view His relation to the Son and Spirit is that of idea to manifestation. Standing in this comprehensible relation, He shows Himself to be an entity that can be projected and dominated by the I. Subordinationism finally means the denial of revelation, the drawing of divine subjectivity into human subjectivity, and by... Read more

Manifest and Secret Jews

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:10 am By Peter Leithart

Romans 2:27-29 is frequently brought into discussions of sacramental efficacy: There’s a difference between the physical rite of circumcision and the spiritual reality to which the rite points. I’m not so sure that’s what Paul is talking about. The terminology of the passage is interesting. Verse 27 speaks of those who are “uncircumcised by nature ( phuseos ),” picking up the language of 2:14: “the nations who have not the law by nature.” Both are talking about those who are... Read more

Objectivity and suicide

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:09 am By Peter Leithart

Van Ranke: “I wish I could eradicate myself, as it were, to let only the things speak, the powerful forces appear.” Read more

Cambridge Non-Events

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:48 pm By Peter Leithart

Paul Helm argues in a 1975 articles that “merely Cambridge events” are not actually events. He is picking up on Peter Geach’s claim that only intrinsic changes, and not relational changes, are real changes. More specifically, he is responding to Jaegwon Kim’s argument that Cambridge events (Xanthippe becoming a widow – a “Cambridge” event because it changes her relation to Socrates but doesn’t change her intrinsically) are non-casually dependent on other events (Xanthippe’s widowhood is non-causally dependent on the death... Read more

Infinite change

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:44 pm By Peter Leithart

JME McTaggart argued in the 1920s that everything changes when anything changes: “If anything changes, then all other things change with it. For its change must change some of their relations to it, and so their relational qualities.” David Weberman finds this “perfectly consistent,” but concludes that “it offends our sense of economy and good common-sense to suppose that I and everything else change in virtue of a butterfly’s slightest move.” Yes, it is an offense to common sense. But... Read more

Erastianism and invisible church

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:36 pm By Peter Leithart

PG Lake writes that Whitgift “used a Calvinist view of the doctrine of predestination to shift much of Cartwright’s rhetoric about the glory and purity of the church from the visible to the invisible church. By doing so, he was able to clear the way for that erastian dominance of the church by the magistrate for which his work is famous, and to challenge the significance of a practical division between the godly and the ungodly as the crucial act... Read more

Eucharistic meditation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:37 pm By Peter Leithart

Luke 7:48: Jesus said to her, Your sins have been forgiven. As Pastor Sumpter has pointed out, there is a liturgical structure to this episode in Luke 7. Jesus is in a house at a table. The woman comes in and offers her oil to Jesus and mourns her sins. Jesus teaches Simon about his duties as host, pronounces the woman forgiven, and then sends her away in peace. It’s all there: Gathering at a table, offering and mourning, teaching,... Read more

Baptismal meditation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm By Peter Leithart

Isaiah 52:13-15: Behold, My servant will prosper, He will be high and lifted up and greatly exalted. Just as many were astonished at you, My people, so His appearance was marred more than any man and His form more than the sons of men. Thus He will sprinkle many nations, kings will shut their mouths on account of Him; for what had not been told them they will see, and what they had not heard they will understand. Yahweh promised... Read more

Exhortation

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:40 pm By Peter Leithart

I’m drawing on Jim Jordan’s Biblical Horizons lectures from this summer. “Be filled with the Spirit,” Paul writes, “speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.” The Spirit is the music of the Trinity, the breath that gives melody to the Word of the Father. When we’re filled with the Spirit, we sing. Just like David. (more…) Read more

Palin

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:05 am By Peter Leithart

Noemie Emery gives a 14-point analysis of what Palin does for McCain over on the Weekly Standard web site. Number 14 is: “Counter-intuitively, makes the issue of Obama’s light resume more potent than ever. Her lack of experience is no more than his is. And he’s—to use a term from Alaska, and the Iditarod—their lead dog.” Read more