Eusebius of Nicomedia, ally of Arius, denied that we can infer anything about God from what has been created. On one hand “there is God” while on the other “things created by free will.” The Word is also a creature of the free will of God. This free will is . . . . Continue Reading »
Love is “as strong as the grave” and ardor “as hard as Sheol.” Both descriptions are arresting because they attribute a kind of violence to love. “Strong” describes the driving wind of the exodus (Exodus 14:21), the raging waters of the sea that swallowed . . . . Continue Reading »
“Put me like a seal on your heart, like a seal on your arm,” says the Bride in the Song of Songs (8:6). Seals mark something with the name of the owner. A letter is sealed as proof of its author (1 Kings 21:8). The high priest’s golden plate is engraved with the name . . . . Continue Reading »
Nature and grace has been a key theological problem at least since the middle ages. But the distinction is often misplaced. As used in Athanasius, for example, the terms refer not to two different realms within the creation, or two different sorts of capacities of human nature. Rather, . . . . Continue Reading »
Late medieval theologians were divided, we’re told, between intellectualists and voluntarists. The first took God’s intellect to be “prior” to His will, and believed His will conforms to His reason. The latter put the will in the place of “priority” . . . . Continue Reading »
Dionysus said that creation is the overflow of the superabundant love of God. That’s true: Many waters cannot quench Yahweh’s fiery love. That love is the flame of the Spirit, the uncreated Flash that flickers over the formless earth and is not put out but instead moves . . . . Continue Reading »
Yahweh speaks with the voice of many waters, and so does Jesus. That means loud, but it also means that the voice is the source of life (cf. Numbers 20:11; 24:7; Ezekiel 17:5), like the abundant waters in the wilderness. Many waters cannot quench the flame of Love. That is, no competing . . . . Continue Reading »
“Set me as a seal upon your heart,” says the Bride to the Bridegroom. Now the priest wore stones with the names of the tribes “engraven like a seal” on his breastplate (Exodus 28:11, 21) and the name of Yahweh, also “engraven like a seal” on the golden plate on . . . . Continue Reading »
Erik Peterson ( Das Buch von den Engeln ) points out that the new song of Revelation 5 is sung by people from every tongue and nation and people. Thus, “the hymn of the church is the transcending of all national hymns, as the speech of the church is the transcending of all . . . . Continue Reading »
Hegel’s “sublation” seems to be a conceptual vestige of perichoresis. Sublation requires the Trinity: If all is one, nothing other can be absorbed within being destroyed. If we have sheer differentiation, all is utterly other. Hegel is right: Sublation happens. Aquinas . . . . Continue Reading »
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