Matthew 26:26-29: And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new . . . . Continue Reading »
Contentment is a spiritual challenge, but it is also something of a puzzle. Scripture urges us to hope, but how do hope and contentment fit together? How is contentment compatible with work, proper ambition, planning and goals? Am I discontented if I want my business to make more profit next year? . . . . Continue Reading »
What makes us different from the animals? Reason? Upright posture? Heidegger said that the answer is more obvious: What makes us different from animals is our hands. Equipped with hands, we can use equipment, and with our equipment we can build and paint and sculpt and click a mouse make and repair . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s frequently said these days that Luther was an innovator in his doctrine of justification. He appealed to Augustine, but distorted Augustine in the process of defending his forensic understanding of justification. Mark Ellingsen ( SJT , 2011) argues that such assessments fail to recognize . . . . Continue Reading »
In the January 24 issue of The New Yorker, Atul Gawande reports on the work of Jeffrey Brenner, a medical doctor in Camden, New Jersy, who discovered that the toughest patients used an astonishing proportion of the health care dollars in Camden: “He made block-by-block maps of the city, . . . . Continue Reading »
Heidegger argues that we discover nature in use of useful things: “nature must not be understood as what is merely objectively present, nor as the power of nature . The forest is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock, the river is water power, the wind is wind ‘in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Existence precedes essence: the Philosophy 101 slogan of existentialists. Protests from traditional philosophers: No, essence precedes existence. Creationists say both and neither. Essence precedes existence: God decreed what or who everything is before it is. Justification confers a . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Heidegger, Descartes represents an effort at pure idealism. Knowledge comes to a detached subject gazing inward, without any attention to the world outside. Heidegger doesn’t believe that Descartes can do it, since we need some knowledge of the phenomenal world if we are going to . . . . Continue Reading »
Barth points out that God is Lord of the city of man as welll as the city of God, and that God loves and cares for all that He has made. What then does election mean? Barth answers, “He is favorably disposed to the pure only in order that they may be at His disposal for service to the . . . . Continue Reading »
A 2010 dissertation by David C. Fink traces the “confessionalization” of the Protestant doctrine of justification. Fink summarizes his work in this abstract: “This dissertation lays the groundwork for a reevaluation of early Protestant understandings of salvation in the sixteenth . . . . Continue Reading »
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