Postmodern imagination

Garrett Green ( Theology, Hermeneutics, and Imagination ) thinks that Feuerbach serves up raw what the masters of suspicion - Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud - cooked and covered with sauces. The fundamental objection to religion in Feuerbach, and in his successors, is the notion that “religion is . . . . Continue Reading »

A-Time, B-Time

In his introduction, Ganssle provides a lucid description of McTaggert’s A and B series (or theories) of time: “The B-theory holds that the most important thing about locating events in time is their relation to other events. So something happens before, after or at the same time as . . . . Continue Reading »

God and Time

I’ve just begun to look at Gregory Ganssle’s God and Time , but the index worries. In a book about time, there are no entries for “calendar” or “clock.” More worrying, there are only four dispersed references to the Trinity. . . . . Continue Reading »

Direct, Indirect, and Trinity

Richard Swinburne describes God’s omnipresence in these terms: “God is supposed to be able to move any part of the universe directly; he does not need to use one part of the universe to make another part move. He can make any part move as a basic action . . . . The claim that God . . . . Continue Reading »

Eucharistic meditation

Matthew 15:27: She said, Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. We don’t belong at this table. I’m not referring here to the fact that we are all sinners who aren’t worthy to be considered our Lord’s table companions. . . . . Continue Reading »

Baptismal meditation

Matthew 15:22: A Canaanite woman came out from that region, and began to cry out, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is cruelly demon-possessed. What is baptism? What is it for? Why do we baptize infants? There are many answers to that, and throughout the history of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Worship service

In Matthew 15:29-31, Jesus moves back from the region of Tyre and Sidon to the sea of Galilee. He goes on a mountain and sits down. He has been on mountains a number of times already to do various things. Most recently, he ascended to a mountain to pray as the Twelve went across the sea in their . . . . Continue Reading »

Proverbs 22:8-16

PROVERBS 22:8 Solomon uses agricultural imagery to describe realities of life. Like Paul and Jesus, he says that we reap as we sow. Our actions are always a kind of planting. We are always sowing seed that will come to fruition later on. If we sow righteousness, we will reap eternal life; if we sow . . . . Continue Reading »

Defending the incarnation?

The iconodules staked their argument on the incarnation, but Besancon notices that after the iconoclast controversy, figures in icons became less carnal rather than more: “In the few primitive icons, which come for the most part from Egypt . . . , Christ or the saints have stocky, thick-set, . . . . Continue Reading »

Reverse perspective

In his history of iconoclasm ( The Forbidden Image ), Alain Besancon describes some of the artistic features of Russian iconography: “Nature is stylized in such a way that trees, rocks, and houses defy gravity. The buildings are not represented within a unified space: each floats in its own . . . . Continue Reading »