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Epistemology

Seeking Integration in a Fragmented World: Covenant Epistemology: The Integrative Regard of the Other

Fragmentation characterizes our era. Bits, bytes, chips, data points. Ourselves as reducible to the meaningless. We can feel dehumanized and lost. We seek wholeness, integration. We rightly believe that integration brings meaningfulness, somehow doing better credit to ourselves as humans and to the world. More than that, integration somehow aligns…

by Esther Lightcap MeekJune 5, 2018
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Proverbs

The Dramatic Structure of Proverbs

The book of Proverbs appears as a largely random collection of aphorisms drawn from experience saturated in law. Despite its random arrangement, however, the book does have an over-arching structure that reinforces its main themes. One way to gather clues regarding the structure of a biblical book (or any book)…

by Peter LeithartMay 31, 2018
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Baptism

Infant Baptism in the History of the Church

Ancient practice in the Church sets an important precedent for present day practice. This certainly doesn’t mean that Christians are bound to only do things as they have always been done, but the principles of catholicity and unity move us not to break from historic church practice on a particular…

by Timothy LeCroyMay 29, 2018
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Biblical Studies

Babel Academy, Part 2

For Part 1, click HERE . Genesis 1 describes the creation of the physical order. Genesis 2 recapitulates the pattern of Genesis 1 as it describes the creation of the social order. Genesis 3 describes the intended founding of an ethical order. It was here that sin entered into the…

by Mike BullMay 24, 2018
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Biblical Studies

Babel Academy, Part 1

The Business of Keeping the Saints in the Dark Let there be light! The first recorded “spoken” words of God. Curiously, even this creative decree was a deed whose fruit required an appraisal. God judged the light and separated it from the darkness. As the cardinal act within a newborn…

by Mike BullMay 22, 2018
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Course Announcement

A Week with Esther Meek - An Introduction to Covenant Epistemology

We are very pleased to announce that Esther Lightcap Meek will be the instructor for our 2018 Trinity Course in August. The course is titled "Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology" and will be held August 13-17 at Beeson Divinity School. Esther Meek, Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy at Geneva…

by TheopolisMay 21, 2018

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Philosophy

Giving and receiving

Pickstock offers a theological alternative to Derrida’s concern that giving is impossible since any hope of a return robs the gift of its character as gift and puts it instead into the category of mutually advantageous capitalist exchange. Pickstock points out that in renouncing “the return” as “an ethical category,”…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Lists

Pickstock uses the “list” as a crucial example of the dominance of asyndeton of modern discourse. Lists provide “a powerful organization of random phenomena,” but at the same time the order slips into chaos because there is nothing linking the “unrelated elements” of the list. They are merely juxtaposed spatially,…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Derrida’s indifference

Pickstock again: For Derrida, there is ultimately no real difference, since all difference is univocally violent. There are particular differences of this and that, but they are all different in the same way - violently different - so there is a “transcendent” sameness. Derrida’s absolute difference collapses is really penultimate…

July 14, 2005
Philosophy

Derrida’s indifference

Pickstock again: For Derrida, there is ultimately no real difference, since all difference is univocally violent. There are particular differences of this and that, but they are all different in the same way - violently different - so there is a “transcendent” sameness. Derrida’s absolute difference collapses is really penultimate…

July 14, 2005
Theology

Socrates and the erotic gaze

Catherine Pickstock argues that Socrates does not articulate a “metaphysical” view of self-presence or interiority. She focuses on the erotic character of knowledge in the Phaedrus, which she points out, radically undermines the interior/exterior boundary. Knowledge on this view always involves ecstasy, an attraction to an object outside, and the…

July 14, 2005

Structure in 2 Kings 16

2 Kings 16 is organized chiastically: 1. Formulaic introduction, 16:1-4 2. Threat to Jerusalem, and bribe of Tiglath-pileser, 16:5-9 3. State visit to Damascus, 16:10-11 (altar) 4. Ahaz ministers at the altar, 16:12-14 3’. Continuing worship at the altar, 16:15-16 2’. Tribute to Tiglath-pileser and plunder of temple, 16:17-18 1’.…

July 13, 2005

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