Peter J. Leithart

I’m feeling supralapsarian today, and here’s why: As Barth said, God’s Yes to man precedes creation (in Barth’s terms, covenant precedes creation).  How could it be otherwise?  If God had said No at the beginning, how could we exist at all? Once God says Yes, can . . . . Continue Reading »

Zizioulas offers a thoughtful defense of the Cappadocian notion that there is “causality” in the relations within the immanent Trinity.  He notes that “the issue of causality was introduced as a response to the Platonists, who believed that the procession from one to another, . . . . Continue Reading »

Barth, along with much of the Western tradition, defends the filioque on the basis of coherence of the economic and ontological Trinity.  If God is not as He appears, we have no revelation of God. John Zizioulas responds by opening up a rather surprising gap between economy and ontology. . . . . Continue Reading »

Several years ago, I posted at length about Barth’s discussion of the filioque clause.  One point I left undeveloped was: “If the Spirit is also the Spirit of the Son only in revelation and for faith, if He is only the Spirit of the Father in eternity, i.e., in His true and . . . . Continue Reading »

Barth’s problems with natural revelation and with creation seem to have a root in his trinitarian theology.  The reconciling Son, he says, comes onto the field that has been created by the Father, yet “we must obviously distinguish them in such a way that we perceive and . . . . Continue Reading »

A neat statement from Barth regarding the Triune root of creation and revelation: “the intradivine possibility in virtue of which God can be manifest to us as the Creator and as our Father is not a self-grounded and self-reposing possibility.  It rather presupposes a possibility of this . . . . Continue Reading »

We cannot, Barth insists, read off the relations of the persons from revelation.  In comprehending the distinctions between the persons in revelation we “do not comprehend the distinctions in the divine modes of being as such.”  That would lead to tritheism. To be sure, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Zechariah begins and ends with horses.  In the first night vision, the horses are in a glen (1:8ff).  They have returned from patrol, and the world is at peace.  That’s not good; sometimes peace is complacency and established evil, and war needs to begin.  By the end of . . . . Continue Reading »

Isaiah 34 prophesies about Yahweh’s assault on the nations and their armies.  They will be slaughtered, their corpses will rot on the earth, adn the mountains will be drenched with their blood (vv. 1-3).  Instead of sacrificial smoke with its pleasing aroma, the stench of corpses . . . . Continue Reading »

Paul alludes to Zechariah 14:5 in 1 Thessalonians 3:13.  Both passages speak of the coming of the Lord with “holy ones.” There may also be another allusion. Paul exhorts the Thessalonians to establish their hearts in love and faith, so that they will be “umblameable in . . . . Continue Reading »