Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Russian Orthodox liturgist Alexander Schmemann died in 1983, but his importance continues to grow, sometimes in surprising ways. A Russian transplanted to Paris and then to Crestwood, New York, he was an acute observer of the American religious scene. He possessed the clarity of vision the Spirit often grants to…
This is the fifth in a series of studies of Deuteronomy 22:3-23:8. "A bastard ( mazmer ) shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh; even to the tenth generation shall none of his enter into the assembly of Yahweh" (Deuteronomy 23:2). [i] The translation “bastard” here for mazmer ,…
The Enlightenment project is very comprehensible in terms of the “Wars of Religion” that followed the Reformation. It's questionable whether all that is said about the Wars of Religion is entirely fair (R. J. Rushdoony’s Christian Survey of World History has some very helpful things to say about this). Still,…
The fourth in a series of studies on Deuteronomy 22:30-23:8. One wounded by crushing, or cut in the member shall not enter into the assembly of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 23:1. [i] The translation of this verse varies in different English versions. The basic idea is clear enough, however: a eunuch is…
Trinity House President Peter Leithart will give a lecture on violence at the 2013 Wheaton Theology Conference later this week.
The third in a series of studies on Deuteronomy 22-23. This continues the second essay, which examines Deuteronomy 22:30: "A man shall not take his father’s wife, and shall not uncover his father’s wing" (Hebrew: kanaf ). The Sin of Ham Another story would almost certainly occur to an ancient…
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O’Donovan makes the point, against Markus, that Augustine does not describe the earthly city as a combination of private ends and public or common utility. This would be a secular system, which leaves ends to individual citizens as they make use of common goods. O’Donovan says Augustine does something like…
Von Balthasar again: Creation is God’s free decision. There need not be a world. “But if he decides to create a world, then of course this decision can only take the form of the analogy of being, which is grounded in God’s very ‘essence’ itself. Created being must be by…
Von Balthasar says that grace presupposes a nature that is free from revelation: “If there is to be revelation, then it can only proceed from God to a creature - to a creature that precisely as a creature does not include revelation in its conceptual range.” Van Til is much…
Von Balthasar puts the nature/grace distinction in simple terms, and ones that resonate with certain strains of Reformed theology: “It belongs to the very essence of the creature that it must indeed be creature, but not a creature who has been exalted to a new order of grace: by nature…
Rahner says that God’s self-gift “can and must” be an “ever astounding wonder, the unexpected, the unexacted gift.” In an extended footnote, he explains that this “can and must” means both that God’s self-communication is in fact unexacted, and that it must be of necessity . On the latter point:…
Rahner re-describes the nature/grace problem in terms of God’s self-communicating love, which is the final cause of creation and the first intention of God: “Everything else exists so that this one thing might be: the eternal miracle of infinite Love.” (Good Edwardsian supralapsarian, he.) But for Rahner, as for every…
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