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Abortion

To Kill or Not to Kill

It seems to be old news, but I was unaware of it until recently. Australian academics argued that mothers should be allowed to terminate the life of a newborn child. [i] Why would they promote such an idea? Because before the child is born it is not always possible to…

by Ralph Allan SmithSeptember 12, 2019
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Philosophy

Is the Betting Rigged in Pascal's Wager?

This is the second of two essays introducing Pascal’s Wager. Click HERE for Part 1. In “The Pop Star and the Mathematician” I gave an overview of the apologetic approach commonly called Pascal’s Wager. In that Wager, 17 th -century French mathematician Blaise Pascal argued that the choice between Christian…

by Alexander WhitakerSeptember 10, 2019
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Philosophy

The Mathematician and the Pop Star: A Pascal's Wager Primer

This is the first of two essays aiming to introduce the reader to Pascal’s Wager. The second will address criticisms of the Wager. In the early 1990s, a perennially popular British pop star was interviewed on British television about his very public evangelical Christian faith. “What if,” the reporter asked…

by Alexander WhitakerSeptember 5, 2019
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Matthew

The Secret of the Middle of Matthew

Matthew 13 is about secrets. In this chapter, Jesus teaches eight parables and tells the disciples that they reveal the secrets of the kingdom (13:11). And much like Samson who both tells riddles and is himself a riddle that the reader must solve, so Jesus not only tells secrets but…

by John HigginsSeptember 3, 2019
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Biblical Theology

David, Goliath, and the Body of Moses, (Part 2)

Click HERE for part One. THE TEXT AS TABERNACLE Creation – Initiation – Genesis (1 Samuel 17:1-11) The gathered armies not only remind the reader of Ebal and Gerizim, but also of the very reason that Israel was established (Creation) , set apart from the other nations by the circumcision…

by Mike BullAugust 29, 2019
job
Job

The Man in the Middle

What to do with Job’s Final “Friend,” Elihu Elihu is a strange character, at least in the sense of how and where he appears in the book of Job. Why does he not appear with the other three “friends?” Does his argument differ from any of the first three who…

by Eric RobinsonAugust 27, 2019

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Reconciling Reason and Faith

In Truth and Tolerance , Benedict XVI argues that the Western world is in a crisis that can only be solved if "reason and religion . . . come together again, without merging into each other" (144). He insists this isn't a matter of protecting the interests of religion, Rather,…

October 20, 2017

Future and the Christian Era

Dead time, Rosenstock-Huessy says, is entirely a product of the past, a result of a cause. That conception of time works for physics, but it fails to account for the reality of human time, which always involves surprise and a break with the past. Through speech, we initiate new times,…

October 19, 2017
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God Is Love

According to the doctrine of the Trinity, the ultimate source of all things, the God in whom we live, move and have our being, is both one and plural, one God in three persons. This has enormous implications for how we think of the world. In ancient philosophy, the highest…

October 19, 2017

God, Time, Eternity

Rosenstock-Huessy believes that God has a unique relationship to time that no human being has, but he describes this unique relationship in ways that are unusual for the Christian tradition. Instead of saying that God is “timeless,” he says that God is “pure time.” This suggestion is based on the…

October 18, 2017

Calendars and Cultural Memory

Modernity’s reduction of time to clock-time is not socially or psychically healthy. As Rosenstock-Huessy puts it: "We need the intersecting of many rhythms of time. Our stomach and our consciousness respond to a 24-hour rhythm. Our faith and our hopes respond to centuries. Our noble passions like the love of…

October 17, 2017

Freedom To Unfreedom

Enlightenment secularism is committed to “freedom” as its overarching value. In an address on “Freedom and Truth” (published in The Essential Pope Benedict XVI ), Benedict XVI describes the Enlightenment as a “will to emancipation” (citing Kant’s sapere aude ). Kant’s plea for philosophical freedom has political dimensions. According to…

October 17, 2017

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