Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In a brief article entitled, “The Theology of Old Testament Sacrifice," Gordon Wenham, expanding on a comment about ritual from anthropologist Monica Wilson, states: We resort to ritual when we want to express our deepest feelings. Consider the rituals used in greeting people in our society: a nod, a handshake,…
Everyone here in Cambridge is talking about sacrifice. My supervisor, Dr. John Milbank, is working on a book on gift in which he is dealing with recent literature on sacrifice. The graduate seminar in Systematics during Michaelmas Term focused on the theme of sacrifice. The first presenter was Dr. Ian…
Protestant-Catholic debates about the sacraments have usually taken the form of debates about sacramental efficacy. Protestants claim that Catholics believe that sacraments work ex opere operato , virtually a magical view of the sacraments. A priest goes through the motions and says the hocus-pocus and "presto!" the sacraments confer grace.…
When Israel came out of Egypt, she was a collection of tribes descended from the Tribe of Abraham. Tribalism drops out of history into the "world" by looking back to ancestors and by orienting to the spirits that govern the world. The world must not be manipulated, because to do…
Angels are the mediators of the Old Creation, as Eugenio Corsini has rightly pointed out in his commentary, The Apocalypse. For this reason, argues Corsini, the book of Revelation must have to do with the final end of the Old Creation order, which he associates with the work of Jesus…
Our procedure in "Through New Eyes Volume 2" thus far has been to lay out the general overview of history and its meaning as the Bible presents it. My hope is to fill this out in four major sections, corresponding to the four ages and the four testaments in the…
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Milbank’s criticisms of Kantian ethics begin from the observation that feeling enters into the ethical mix only as “the paradoxical feeling of ‘the sublime’ which is the feeling of a break with feeling, or the counter-attractive attraction of sacrifice.” This account of moral feeling, Milbank argues, arises from central themes…
My article on “re-paganizing the West” is up on the First Things web site: http://www.firstthings.com.
You’ll notice to the right that my book on postmodernism is due out early next year. In it, I use some of the images and categories of Ecclesiastes to explore some themes of postmodernism - specifically, language, the self, and politics.
In a web essay, Jean-Michel Rabaté traces the background to Lacan’s notorious coupling of Kant and Sade. One mediating figure is Freud. In an essay on the “economic problem of masochism,” Freud linked the Kantian categorical imperative with the cruel demands of the super-ego: “This super-ego is in fact just…
Part 2 of Kant’s treatise on rational religion is a philosophical allegorization of traditional Christology and soteriology, which he pursues in an effort to explain the formation of a humanity pleasing to God. Some notes on this section: 1) Kant approves of the Stoic notion of virtue as manly courage…
Kant admits that his philosophical interpretation of the fall is not “intended for Scriptural exegesis, which lies outside the boundaries of the competence of mere reason.” Putting the “historical account” to “moral use” leaves the issue of the writer’s intention, the text’s meaning, historicity to the side. But perhaps the…
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