Jenson notoriously claims that God is not only identified by the events of Exodus and Resurrection but identified with them ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God , 59). This has led some to question whether he really believes in the Creator-creature distinction, something that he has . . . . Continue Reading »
Modernity rests on a distinction between Us moderns and Them primitives. Them primitive might be dead and gone; they might be somewhere south of Us, in warmer, wetter climates and with darker skin. But Them is primitive, even if they are contemporaries. The problem is, modernity spawns a continuous . . . . Continue Reading »
We think that humility means minimizing achievement and talent. “It’s nothing. I’m nothing” sounds humble to our ears. It’s not. Better to be thorough Pauline. Paul doesn’t exactly maximize achievement, but he comes close: “I speak in tongues more than . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Ayres’ analysis ( Augustine and the Trinity , 70), Augustine’s early explorations of the notion of the “inseparable action” of the Father, Son, and Spirit are expositions of what is standard Nicene orthodoxy: “First, Augustine sees Father, Son and Spirit . . . . Continue Reading »
Colin Gunton and others criticize Augustine’s treatment of Old Testament theophanies, where Augustine concludes that it is impossible to determine which person appears in the theophany. For Gunton, the Son is the appearing-one in the Old Testament, and Augustine’s hesitation smacks of a . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God , 47) notes that ancient gods were generally not jealous: “The gods in general have no final stake in their individual identities and will arrange them to suit our religious needs. Thus Greece knew Kourai, and Canaan knew Baalim, by the . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson points out ( Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God , 25) that, though the church’s witness is carried on and received by institutions and traditions, “no structures of historical continuity merely as such can assure the integrity of witness to reality that is other than . . . . Continue Reading »
Henry Lefebvre ( Introduction to Modernity ) vividly captures the modernity of modernity, our continuous quest for novelty: “Once, in an ahistorical society with virtually no conscious history, nothing began and nothing came to an end. Today everything comes to an end virtually as soon as it . . . . Continue Reading »
Agamben cites Rudolf Sohm ( Opus Dei: An Archaeology of Duty , 9), who argued that “the primitive church [was] a charismatic community, within which no properly juridical organization was possible.” There was no “legal power to rule” but instead “the organization of . . . . Continue Reading »
Giorgio Agamben writes that Christianity produced a “new ontological-practical paradigm, namely that of effectiveness, in which being and acting enter into a threshold of undecidability. If, in the words of Foucault, Plato taught the politician not what he must do but what he must be in order . . . . Continue Reading »
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