In his analysis of The doctrine of the atonement in Jonathan Edwards and his successors , DP Rudisill says that Edwards sets the Father’s justice in opposition to the Son’s love. This cannot be, of course: “If Christ be the perfect revelation of God, the attributes which He . . . . Continue Reading »
After a long and sobering examination of the disagreements among Protestants, Brad Gregory ( The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society ) draws the obvious conclusion: Whatever its merits as a theological principle, sola scriptura failed to unite the Protestant . . . . Continue Reading »
Gregory ( The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society ) follows Amos Finkelstein’s genealogical tracing of the modern scientific worldview to Scotist univocity. To illustrate the effect of Scotism on the Reformers, he points to their rejection of . . . . Continue Reading »
Gregory provides a superb analysis of the self-imposed blindness of the historical profession ( The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society , 6-10). Periodization is itself a problem, with specialists delving ever deeper into their chosen period without trying to . . . . Continue Reading »
At the outset of his The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society , Brad S. Gregory takes aim at Charles Taylor’s overly simplified portrait of the shift from the medieval “naive acknowledgment of the transcendent” to the “exclusive . . . . Continue Reading »
When Israel camped in the wilderness, they set up toilet facilities outside the camp area. The camp was holy because Yahweh walked there, and He told Israel to keep it free of uncleanness (Deuteronomy 23:12-14). The phrasing of Moses’s warning is odd: “Yahweh must not see the nakedness . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 2002 article in History of Religions , Bruce Lincoln reviews the revisionist theory of William “Oriental” Jones regarding the origins of languages and races. As much as his predecessors and contemporaries (such as Isaac Newton, whose History of Ancient Kingdoms - A Complete . . . . Continue Reading »
Stroumsa ends his pre-history of comparative religion scholarship ( A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason , 160) with the observation that during the 19th century “the continuing degradation of the status of the Bible would dramatically weaken interest in the biblical . . . . Continue Reading »
A version of this post was swallowed into cyberspace and fully digested earlier today. A roughly equivalent re-posting follows. Modern concepts of civil religion arise, argues Guy Stroumsa ( A New Science: The Discovery of Religion in the Age of Reason ) from two sources: The Querelle des Rites . . . . Continue Reading »
It is common, perhaps especially among Christians, to reduce cultural history to intellectual history and to trace intellectual history by hopping from philosopher to philosopher. Hume poses problems that Kant tries to solve, and Heidegger tries to undo Descartes. Not false, but very one-sided. . . . . Continue Reading »
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