It would be difficult to find a better short statement on the inspiration of Scripture than this: “Those things revealed by God, which are contained and presented in the texts of Holy Scripture, were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit . . . . In the process of composition of the . . . . Continue Reading »
Augustine doesn’t think interpretive pluralism as a big problem: “What difficulty is it for me when these words can be interpreted in various ways, provided only that the interpretations are true? What difficulty is it for me, I say, if I understand the text in a way different from . . . . Continue Reading »
In a well-known passage in De catechizandis rudibus , Augustine explains the purpose of the whole Scripture and of redemptive history: “Thus, before all else, Christ came so that people might learn how much God loves them, and might learn this, so that they would catch fire with love for him . . . . Continue Reading »
As Robert Jenson and Michel Rene Barnes have emphasized, Gregory of Nyssa’s theology (in, eg, Against Eunomius ) centers on a meditation on God’s infinity. Greeks were reluctant to say that God is infinite, since an infinite thing cannot, by Hellenic lights, have a nature. A nature is . . . . Continue Reading »
RA Markus points out in his classic study Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine that in Augustine’s view “what prevented the Christian from being at home in his world was not that he had an alternative home in the Church, but his faith in the transformation of . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus threatens to spew the Laodiceans out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16. The OT background is in Leviticus 18 and 20, where Yahweh says that the land vomited out the Canaanites and will vomit out Israel if they defile the land as the Canaanites did. Jesus is the land. If Jesus is the land, though, . . . . Continue Reading »
Augustine’s argument against the Athanasian use of 1 Corinthians 1;24 is that if Christ is the Wisdom and Power of God in the fullest sense, then the Father has no wisdom or power of His own. The Son would not be “wisdom from wisdom, power from power,” and that might imply too . . . . Continue Reading »
At the beginning of Book 6 of de Trinitate , Augustine begins to examine 1 Corinthians 1:24: Christ is the Wisdom and Power of God. Throughout Books 6 and 7, he asks whether this means that the Father possesses His Wisdom “relatively,” that is, in the Son, or absolutely in se . At the . . . . Continue Reading »
Augustine is often charged with a quasi-unitarian, quasi-modalistdoctrine of God. The one substance so dominates the three Persons that the latter are reduced to inflections or operations of what amounts to a single divine Person. Augustine’s discussion of substance, accidents, and relation . . . . Continue Reading »
INTRODUCTION Beginning in chapter 13, Isaiah proclaims a series of “burdens” against the nations. He begins with Babylon (13:1; 14:4), and in chapter 21 he returns to Babylon, now called the “wilderness of the sea” (21:1). In these oracles, Yahweh shows that He is Lord of . . . . Continue Reading »
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