Explore our collection of theological essays, biblical studies, and reflections on faith and culture.
For many people the date October 31 is significant not only for being the Eve of All Saints (All Hallows Eve, Halloween) but as the day in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg. These theses were a list of…
It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter. "Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint,"…
The following is an excerpt from Peter Leithart's forthcoming two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark). Y ou must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings,” a voice tells John (Rev. 10:11). Then someone gives him a “reed like a rod” and instructs him to measure (11:1).…
Josiah is an ideal Davidic king in many ways. He not only “did right,” but he “walked in the ways of his father David” and “did not turn aside to the right or to the left” (2 Chronicles 34:2). At the age of 16, he began to seek Yahweh, and…
One of the best discussions of Augustine’s views on time comes from Jeremy Begbie’s Theology, Music, and Time (ch. 3). Following Paul Ricoeur, Begbie claims that Augustine’s distentio “is conceived as the three-fold present, and the threefold present as distentio . The distentio consists in the non-coincidence of the mind’s…
This has always been the position of the Christian Church, and from an historical perspective the present situation in evangelicalism is appalling. The early liturgies of the Church, which are still used in Episcopal and Lutheran worship, are laced with psalm phrases. The early hymns, such as the Te Deum…
Showing page 104 of 309
Showing page 1 of 43
Khaled Anatolios notes that Origen argued that “if God is eternally alighty, there must always be a creation over which God is sovereign.” Athanasius feels the force of the argument, but “transposes this line of reasoning to argue that if God is Creator, he must be eternally in possession of…
Those leading the assault on “classical theism” in recent decades has charged that the classical doctrine of God in Christian theology has reduced God to an impassive Stoic at best, and impersonal Substance at worst. Few can lay more direct claim to having founded “classical theism” than Athanasius, and yet…
In an extended discussion of the Christological import of Proverbs 8, Athanasius argues that the phrases “before the ages” and “before the mountains were set in place” refer to God’s preparation of the economy of grace: “Being himself good and the lover of humanity, he prepared beforehand the economy of…
Athanasius opposed to extrinicism in every form. Most obviously, he opposes the Arian effort to make the Son external to the Father and to the being of God. But that intrinsicism unfolds in an intrinsicist, christologically grounded soteriology. Why couldn’t God have sent a creature to save us? he presents…
In a proto-Wittgensteinian vein, Hamann wrote to Jacobi: “Metaphysics has its own school and court languages . . . and I am incapable of either understanding or making use of them. Hence I am close to suspecting that the whole of our philosophy consists more of language than of reason,…
In the Berlin-doesn’t-get-Hamann department, there’s also Berlin’s claim that for Hamann “existence logically precedes reason” and “there exists a pre-rational reality.” Not exactly. The world is there before we start reflecting on it; it’s got to be there for us to reflect on it. But for Hamann the real is…
Showing page 1459 of 2212
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.
