I hope that friends of the next theology will join me in welcoming the recent remark by John Milbank, in his 2011 Stanton Lectures, that the truer legacy of Thomas Aquinas is better sought “in the current of German Dominican mysticism and its Renaissance heirs” than in the soi-disant “Thomists” of a later day. However, [...]
Archive for January, 2011
Empyrean Dialogues 3 – The Forerunner
Posted in Didactic Fiction, tagged eschatology, Incarnation, revelation, theology on January 25, 2011 | 2 Comments »
The meeting of Moses and the Son goes on in the Empyrean prior to the Incarnation. Moses has expressed concern that the Forerunner may be adversely influenced by Jewish apocalyptic writing. MOSES: The saints are of course thrilled, Sire, that a native son of Israel will be harbinger of your mission. THE SON: The son of [...]
Kierkegaard – Praying to an unchanging God
Posted in Constructive Orthodoxy, prayer, tagged Christianity, faith, Kierkegaard, philosophy, prayer, religion, sermons, theology on January 19, 2011 | 6 Comments »
“Prayer does not change God, but it changes the one who offers it” – Soren Kierkegaard (1847) We misunderstand Kierkegaard’s meaning here if we think he’s saying prayer doesn’t reach God. Neither is he calling prayer a one-way street, or a futile method of venting hope and desire, or a technique of problem-solving by self-hypnosis. We Christians know that [...]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Aids to Reflection (1825)
Posted in Constructive Orthodoxy, Conversion, tagged Christianity, philosophy, religion, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, theology on January 12, 2011 | 6 Comments »
I meddle not with the dispute respecting conversion, whether, and in what sense, necessary in all Christians. It is sufficient for my purpose, that a very large number of men, even in Christian countries, need to be converted, and that not a few, I trust, have been. The tenet becomes fanatical and dangerous, [...]
Lustful looking – when is it sin and when is it not sin?
Posted in sin, tagged beauty, Bible, exegesis, forgiveness, Gospel of Matthew, Jesus, New Testament, philosophy, pornography, Scripture, theology on January 11, 2011 | 3 Comments »
When Jimmy Carter confessed to adultery-of-the-heart in 1976 he uttered a commonplace (and false) assumption that an unexpressed desire is equivalent with actual sin: Carter: “I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times [cites Matthew 5:27-28]. This is something that God recognizes that I will do and have done, [...]
Kant’s Religion and Schleiermacher’s Faith
Posted in philosophy, theology, tagged Christianity, Church, faith, Kant, religion, Schleiermacher on January 9, 2011 | 6 Comments »
I am inspired (again) by the mind of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) – the occasion this time being my third trip through Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793, 2nd 1794 – ET 1934). I’ve read and re-read a lot of Kant’s books since making my first attempt at the Critique of Pure Reason in [...]
Apocalypse now and then
Posted in Apocalypse, Satire, tagged Apocalyptic, Christianity, Church, eschatology, Gospel, Jesus, revelation, theology on January 7, 2011 | 3 Comments »
I have absolutely no doubt that warnings about a day of the Lord scheduled for May 21 of this year are false. In fact, nobody could be as sure as I am that this is a bad call unless they were themselves a ‘seer’ into such dark matters. All right then. It so happens I’ve had [...]
