Jeremy Begbie has pointed out that, though a physical phenomena, music has different spatial qualities than solid objects. Music is present in a place, but it’s not localized in a way a visually perceptible object is. I can give my attention to listening to the sound, but I can’t say . . . . Continue Reading »
In his World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (A John Hope Franklin Center Bo) , Immanuel Wallerstein argues that the modern world-system is fundamentally a capitalist economic system, the states being within in. On this model, he explains why the various efforts at modern world-empire (Charles V, . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson has a neat summary and response to the Palamite distinction between energies and essence. Gregory, he notes, aimed to defend “Byzantine monastic teaching that the sanctified truly participate in God; that grace is not a mere matter of God’s effects upon us or our knowledge of and . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Systematic Theology: Volume 1: The Triune God , Jenson ponders why Barth’s Trinitarian theology so often seems to collapse into a binity: “the inner-divine community of the Father and the Son is, explicitly [in Barth], ‘two-sided.’” Since the Spirit is the . . . . Continue Reading »
INTRODUCTION Isaiah’s series of burdens ends with a prophecy against the Phoenician city of Tyre. With its twin city Sidon, Tyre was one of the great trade cities of the ancient world. It will be destroyed, and all the cities that prospered from her trade will lament (vv. 1, 5, 14; cf. . . . . Continue Reading »
Though he doesn’t deny that medieval cities had their forms of oppression and ugliness, Timothy Gorringe argues that the medieval city lived up to its claim: “the city makes one free.” The city was a place to “escape from the oppression of feudal bonds,” and during the . . . . Continue Reading »
Timothy Gorringe ( A Theology of the Built Environment: Justice, Empowerment, Redemption ) summarizes Barth’s idea of “divine spatiality”: “God’s ‘eminent spatiality’ . . . grounds our own created spatiality. Space, in other words, is not something . . . . Continue Reading »
Jonathan Edwards writes in his Personal Narrative about his delight in nature, and then went off into an allegorical reverie: “The soul of the true Christian . . . appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to . . . . Continue Reading »
Ephrem the Syrian on Genesis 1: “The Holy Spirit warmed the waters with a kind of vital warmth, even bringing them to a boil through intense head in order to make them fertile. The action of a hen is similar. It sits on its eggs, making them fertile through the warmth of incubation. Here . . . . Continue Reading »
In a fascinating discussion of Enrique Martinez Celaya’s painting Thing and Deception in his God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art (Cultural Exegesis) , Daniel Siedell quotes Martinez Celaya’s comments: “I chose a seemingly banal image, a chocolate bunny rabbit . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
