Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Suppose that the theistic evolutionists are right, and that the Big Bang Hypothesis is correct. In that case, God originally created a Primeval Atom, which then exploded and congealed to form the present universe. Now, if you had arrived on the scene one quintillionth of a second after God created…
According to Galatians 3, Abraham heard the gospel when the Lord promised that "all the nations shall be blessed in you." Paul quotes here from Genesis 12:3, but the context puts an odd slant on the Old Testament text. Galatians 3 starts with a series of rhetorical questions about the…
Ephesians 2.15: ton vomon twv enotwn en dogmasin katargesas, ina tous duo ktise en autw eis ena kainon anthrwpon, poiwn eirenen having annulled the law of the commandments in decrees, in order that He might create in Him[self] the two into one new man, making peace. The above translation is…
In The Oddness of the Feast of Booths , we saw that the Feast of Booths is a commemoration of the first encampment of Israel at Sukkoth (Booths) in Exodus 12:37, almost certainly the first celebration of the week of Unleavened Bread after the first Passover. The Feast of Booths…
James Jordan has pointed out in Through New Eyes and elsewhere that the Mosaic system of worship comes to an end with the dismemberment of the tabernacle in 1 Samuel 4-6. Because of the sins of Eli and his sons, that priestly family is cut off and the ark is…
In a significant essay in the 19 April 1999 issue of The Weekly Standard, entitled "Wars of Hatred and the Hatred of War," Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr., points out a significant shift that seems to be taking place in the modern world. He begins by asserting his thesis, that a…
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In 1859, Baron George-Eugene Haussmann, Prefect of the Seine, began overhauling Paris. The ultimate result was a masterpiece of urban rationality - straight streets, buildings of the same height, squares, a mappable city. On the way to clarity, though, the city was “rendered illegible,” according to art historian T. J.…
Knight says that modernity has not left the upper/lower, intelligible/sensible dualism of Platonism behind, but only tipped it on its side. The modern “subject” is a variation on the world of ideas, while the inert “object” corresponds to the lesser reality of the sensible world.
A strict distinction between law and gospel is offered as a prophylactic against works-righteousness. If it is admitted that law is gospel in any sense, all is lost. But this view assumes the very same view of law that it contests. A proponent of works righteousness sees the law as…
In his essay “What is Enlightenment?” Kant described humanity’s coming-of-age. Enlightenment makes man’s deliverance from the tutelage of external authorities and the achievement of mature autonomy. Earlier, Descartes had constructed an entire philosophy on the foundation of “clear and distinct ideas.” The Enlightenment billed itself as the end of blindness…
Since at least Kant, Western theology has been hesitant to talk about salvation in terms of payment, debt, restitution. This helps create and reinforce the separation of public and private, of inner and outer: “We have divided the theological confession of sin. We have invented two parallel worlds, one in…
Knight defines “secularity” as “the term for the determination of an elite to be autonomous and to make the polis the servant and expression of their autonomy. Some are then free of external intellectual authority, but they themselves comprise an undeclared intellectual authority over others. The state would then not…
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