Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
In The Meaning of History , Nikolai Berdyaev argues that the ancient Greeks had no concept of history and no philosophy of history because their concept of God and the world did not allow for it. “They conceived the world aesthetically, as a finite and harmonious cosmos. The most representative…
You know how the curtain parts at the beginning of a play, and you see a new scene, with characters and sets and incidents that had remained hidden up til then? Church last week was like that. Except the curtain was made up of all the things I thought were…
Genesis 3 records the terrible day when humanity fell into sin and shalom was violated. This was a moment of cosmic treason, when Adam and Eve violated their relationship with God by rebelling against His command and fell into the severe ignobility we all experience. The entrance of sin wrecked…
One of the most important contributions of twentieth-century Catholic nouvelle théologie , and of Henri de Lubac and Jean Danielou in particular, was its rehabilitation of the typological interpretation of the Bible practiced by patristic and medieval theologians. Typological interpretation assumes that events and institutions of the Old Testament present…
The Catholic News Service has reported that Pope Francis has called for the abolition of not only the death penalty, but also of life in prison. In a meeting with representatives of the International Association of Penal Law, the pontiff called for all “Christians and people of good will” to…
Each year, the United Nations designates November 25 as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon explains, “Violence against women and girls takes many forms and is widespread throughout the globe. It includes rape, domestic violence, harassment at work, abuse in school, female…
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Ian Hunter ( Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany ) notes that Kant’s “philosophical biblical hermeneutics” is “the intellectual method or spiritual exercise through which his rational theology performs the core task of university metaphysics.” Hunter elaborates that this task is “reconciling moral philosophy and revealed…
Among the many delightful character sketches in Paul Hazard’s The European Mind, 1680-1715 is this Chestertonian riff on John Toland (notorious author of Christianity not mysterious ): “He had taken his M. A. at Glasgow; he had studied at Edinburgh, Leyden and Oxford. He had delved into ancient history, only…
Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth offered a novel defense of the doctrine of the Trinity, under assault during the seventeenth century. He thought those who attacked the doctrine and those who defended were both wrong to treat it as a “revealed mystery.” Cudworth thought it was a piece of natural theology.…
Peter Harrison ( ‘Religion’ and the Religions in the English Enlightenment ) argues that there was an epochal change in the understanding of Christianity during the seventeenth century. Over the protests of such puritans as Robert Harris and Richard Baxter, who argued for what Harris called “true religion in the…
INTRODUCTION Even after Jesus has fed 4000 men, along with women and children ( 15:32 -39), the Pharisees and Sadducees aren’t satisfied. They want a “sign from heaven” (16:1). The disciples don’t understand either, and Jesus has to remind them of His power to give bread (16:8-11). THE TEXT “Then…
Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the Eyewitnesses is full of intriguing information and innovative arguments. At least the arguments look innovative in the context of contemporary NT scholarship. In any other context, they look like common sense. Like this: “We [NT scholars] have become accustomed to working with models of oral…
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