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…
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The Reformed Orthodox were entirely correct to discern a fundamental threat and challenge in the spread of Cartesianism, especially as regards the relation of philosophy and theology. But it’s hard to read about their responses without sadness. “Whatever reason brings out of its stinking heaps must be subordinate to the…
On the one hand: Method is a discipleship - a “following after.” And the Cartesian methodus is in conflict with the “following after” demanded of a Christian disciple. Here, Descartes offers a different way, a different truth and life. The Christian “method” of knowledge and wisdom is discipleship, not doubt…
Bizer again, on Melchior Leydekker’s summary of the Cartesian critique of Reformed orthodoxy: “The Cartesians reproach the orthodox to the effect that their theology is not scriptural, that they have re-introduced Catholic scholasticism into the Church; that they hinder every advance in knowledge and their work does not have scientific…
At several points, Bizer notes that the Reformed orthodox critics of Cartesian philosophy and its application to theology formulated their arguments to buttress their opposition to Lutheran ideas of the real presence. Peter van Mastricht “resists the proposition that God could do something contradictory; one of the reasons for this…
Reformed Orthodoxy failed to stop the spread of Cartesian philosophy, despite vigorous efforts. Why? Bizer suggests that the orthodox critique often adopted much of what it criticized. In Martin Schoock’s notorious response to Descartes, “there is no word . . . about the fact that the Cartesian proof of God…
Johannes Cocceius, a father of biblical theology, would seem to have little in common with Cartesian rationalism. But most of the Cocceians in the latter part of the 17th century were Cartesians. Ernest Bizer (in an article entitled “Reformed Orthodoxy and Cartesianism”) suggests that there was an affinity between the…
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