Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Timon Cline wrote recently that “theonomists” didn’t run Puritan New England. 1 He is correct, in his major thesis, that the claim that “Puritanism and the natural law tradition are antithetical” is “wildly ahistorical.” Mr. Cline demonstrates that Puritans repeatedly extolled natural law. Besides the Puritan sources Mr. Cline mustered,…
The Church is the land of the walking trees. In Mark’s Gospel, the identity of Jesus is slowly and progressively revealed. Though St. Mark announces at the beginning of his narrative that Jesus Christ is “the Son of God” (1:1), this is a reality that must be spoon-fed to His…
All Scripture is of ultimate significance as the word of God, but it may be helpful to think about what makes a book (in this case, a letter) possibly unique within the canon. In this case, the “general” nature of Ephesians should stand out, but it often is not recognized…
Where do we draw the lines between what is right and wrong? This question is fundamental to civilization, fundamental to a free society. To put this question in the bluntest and most offense terms: if there is a time to kill — which Solomon says there is — whom shall…
This article was originally posted in May of 1994. We speak of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The early Church tended to speak of Him as Father, Word, and Spirit. In this short essay, I want to suggest some other ways to think of the Trinity, ways that…
Jonah’s Home The story of JONAH belongs in the book of KINGS. JONAH balances the story of the unnamed Judean prophet (1K13) in KINGS’ literary structure. Each story describes a journeying prophet that crosses land or sea to confront a wayward king. The two stories are located during the reigns…
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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…
In a fascinating review of a recent book on evolution (TNR, Sept 4), Oren Harman suggests that reports of the death of Lamarck, proclaimed in every middle school science classroom for well over a century, may be somewhat exaggerated: Lamarckism “is and isn’t” dead. Insofar as Lamarckism meant “direct adaptive…
One of Barth’s main contentions that only a Triune God can give Himself. A monadic God might give, but would give something less than Himself. Only if God is both Himself and another, and only if that other is fully God, can God give Himself .
Bavinck writes: “It is wrong to conceive the decree as if it determined only a person’s end and coerced him or her in that direction regardless of what they did. The decree is as inconceivably rich as reality itself. It is, in fact, the fountainhead of all reality. It encompasses…
Blumenberg writes ( Legitimacy of the Modern Age ) that with Bacon, Kepler, and particularly Leibniz, the Augustinian suspicion of curiosity is overcome, and knowledge thereafter “justifies itself; it does not owe thanks for itself to God; it no longer has any tinge of illumination or graciously permitted participation but…
Blumenberg says that Bacon drew a distinction between metaphysics and physics in terms of human control: “The former has as its object the unalterable law beyond man’s influence; the latter comprises all knowledge of the operative and material causes that man can transpose in order to influence given states of…
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