Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
Midwives are rarely mentioned in Scripture, but play a prominent role in the first chapter of Exodus. The word midwife is used seven times in verses 15-22, though it is used only twice elsewhere in the Old Testament. The reason, I think, is not merely that the midwives were heroic…
Leviathan (41:1-11) is the climax of the theophany, the culmination of the Lord’s speech. His final answer to Job’s injudicious charges against God’s justice. After hearing God rehearse the characteristics of Leviathan and His absolute power over him, Job instantly repents in dust and ashes. He confesses, "I know now…
Our purpose in this study is to lay out the chronology and history of the Kingdom of Judah from the reign of King Josiah to the completion of the exile of the Jews under Nebuchadnezzar, with particular attention to the events recorded in Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Empire of Assyria…
Protestants have always insisted that the sacraments bring no benefit without a response of faith, but this seems to undermine infant baptism, since infants do not appear to be able to exercise faith. Luther and Calvin held together their insistence on faith with infant baptism by claiming that infants can…
Traditional Presbyterian theologians regularly cite 1 Corinthians 11:28 as an argument against the practice of paedocommunion. Children must be able “to examine themselves” before they come to the table. Supposedly this text demands a certain level of intellectual capability as well as the capacity to engage in self-conscious introspection, both…
Yahweh’s two speeches at the end of the book of Job (38-41) should bring some closure to the book. The prologue has the whole cosmic order arrayed against the blameless and upright Job, "a man who feared God and shunned evil" (1:1, 8; 2:3). Yahweh’s capstone speeches affirm God’s absolute…
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One of Kant’s central contributions to philosophy was the invention of the notion of “critical philosophy,” which means epistemology, which means philosophy as a critique of knowledge. Philosophy is the queen of the sciences that polices the borders between sciences and keeps everyone safely in his or her own department.…
Paul D. Janz offers a favorable interpretation of Kantian epistemology in his God, the Mind’s Desire . Janz begins with an assessment of Kant’s project in the first Critique. It is, he points out, a Critique of Pure Reason , not a defense, yet in spite of this title and…
What is the problem Kant is trying to solve? Near at hand, there are a host of problems: He wants to respond to Hume’s skepticism; he struggles with the problem of evil; he wants to affirm the advances of Newton without sacrificing humanity and religion. But if we look in…
What is the problem Kant is trying to solve? Near at hand, there are a host of problems: He wants to respond to Hume’s skepticism; he struggles with the problem of evil; he wants to affirm the advances of Newton without sacrificing humanity and religion. But if we look in…
Kant is often accused of bringing an end to metaphysics. He didn’t think so: “Metaphysics, with which it is my fate to be in love, although only rarely can I boast of any favours from her, offers two advantages. The first is that it serves to solve the tasks which…
Nancey Murphy summarizes Kant’s argument that the cosmological argument reduces to the ontological in this way: “Suppose we can argue to the necessary existence of some x by showing that its existence is a necessary condition for the existence of all that we know to exist. How, then, to identify…
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