Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Optimism is “an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.” 1 On the other hand, pessimism is “an inclination to emphasize adverse aspects, conditions, and possibilities or to expect the worst possible outcome.” We can see that optimism and…
If we wish to understand the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we must begin with seeing them as a part of the creational order. Trees, along with plants and seed-bearing things, come to life by the word of God as part of…
“I chant slips and irreversible disasters, wiltings, failures, scars, the little disappointments and the large, blue streaks down a world that wishes it was only suncolors.” Paul J. Pastor from Kintsugi Song I recently lost something very valuable. Something I’d had for years and used every day. But, it wasn’t…
In his eponymous book, Jonah follows an exodus pattern. He travels through the waves and east of the city into the wilderness. On a first reading, it looks like another use of this common literary shape in the Old Testament: salvation through the waters of death and the wilderness of…
“Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” The unknowing master of ceremonies didn’t know how right he was. We see this play out in John’s apocalypse. The end is like the beginning,…
Read in isolation, The Test of Adultery (Num 5:11-31) presents the reader with a seemingly bizarre ritual, conjuring up ideas bordering on the Salem Witch Trials. Beyond this, pressing questions linger—such as, “Why is the woman in particular singled out, while no test is provided for the husband of a…
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Rossi writes (in Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science ), “Though Bacon had violently attacked Paracelsus for such notions, he proposed to test the powers of imagination by trying to arrest the fermentation of beer and prevent churned milk from turning into butter. Indeed he exalts the occult powers of…
Howard White traces out a bit of Bacon’s lineage as a political philosopher: “Young Hobbes had accompanied Bacon on some of his walks, and Bacon delighted in his company. And Hobbes was to establish a system of political philosophy on principles of motion, precisely as Bacon ahd urged, taking his…
Bacon offers this explanation of the myth of Prometheus: “The next is a remarkable part of the fable, which represents that men, instead of gratitude and thanks, fell into indignation and expostulation, accusing both Prometheus and his fire to Jupiter, - and yet the accusation proved highly pleasing to Jupiter;…
Paolo Rossi says of Bacon: “The distinction between the will and power of God, so fully and subtly present in Baconian texts, is very important. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handworks’: this very from the Psalms . . . is quoted by Bacon…
Paolo Rossi says of Bacon: “The distinction between the will and power of God, so fully and subtly present in Baconian texts, is very important. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handworks’: this very from the Psalms . . . is quoted by Bacon…
Stanley Fish, in a renowned essay on Bacon’s Essays , concludes that the essays are “unfinished with a purposefulness that makes the bestowing of the adjective less a criticism than a compliment.” He insists on the provisionality of knowledge, and “communicates that provisionality [in the Essays ] by letting the…
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