Is the church a polis herself? Or a replacement for the pagan cults at the heart of the ancient polis? There might be another way to say it. Erik Peterson ( Das Buch von den Engeln , 1935) points to the NT language about a heavenly Jerusalem of which Christians are citizens. He . . . . Continue Reading »
Traveling by sea to Rome, Paul encounters a storm, plunges into the sea and then arrives at Malta. He is an unreluctant Jonah, cross the sea westward to call a Gentile empire to repentance. But why the unusually detailed travelogue in Acts 27? Sidon, Cyprus, Cilicia, Pamphylia, Myra in . . . . Continue Reading »
Let us suppose that the Son dwells in flesh, dies to flesh, rises in Spirit, all to prepare a new humanity to receive the radiance of light within. What might be wrong with that? One objection might be: Why does God need time to prepare a body? As a student, Stephen Long, recently . . . . Continue Reading »
What difference does the incarnation make? For Athanasius, it means (among other things, of course) that grace is worked from within humanity rather than being offered extrinsically from without, as grace was given to Adam. Redemption history is a movement from extrinsic to intrinsic grace, . . . . Continue Reading »
Levinas opposes the reduction of the Other to the Same. So, with more reason, does Athanasius: The Father and Son are not one in the sense that “one thing is twice named, so that the Same ( ton auton ) becomes at one time Father, at another time His own Son.” This is the error of . . . . Continue Reading »
Chee-Chiew Lee has an interesting article on the phrase “company of nations” in Genesis 35:11. She links the promise that Jacob will become a company of nations to the promise that Abraham would be a father of many nations in Genesis 17:4-5. But 35:11 adds an important gloss . . . . Continue Reading »
Peter Singer ( Hegel: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) ) gives a neat summary of the paradoxes of desire in Hegel: “Desire appeared as the expression of the fact that self-consciousness needs an external object, and yet finds itself limited by anything that is outside . . . . Continue Reading »
A web summary of Lacan’s negative account of desire says, “In constructing our fantasy-version of reality, we establish coordinates for our desire; we situate both ourselves and our object of desire, as well as the relation between. As Slavoj Zizek puts it, ’ through fantasy, we . . . . Continue Reading »
“I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me,” says the bride in the Song of Songs (7:10). “Desire” is the same word used in Genesis 3:16 and 4:7, both of which describe a desire for authority, domination, rule, a threatening desire. The bridegroom of the Song . . . . Continue Reading »
We’re all deists. The design of the universe shows that a Great Intelligent Something is responsible for it. No, says Athanasius. The design of the universe is the impress of eternal wisdom on the creation. The cunning of creation doesn’t manifest “God,” . . . . Continue Reading »
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