Peter J. Leithart

A couple of thoughtful observations from members at Trinity Reformed Church on Lent and penitential seasons: Hannah Grieser suggests that there is an analogy between the Lord’s Day liturgy and the church year; the church year is the Lord’s Day writ large. Since we have a penitential . . . . Continue Reading »

Daniel and his three associates each had two names - a Jewish and a Babylonian. Jim Jordan points out in his recent commentary that the Jewish names are used when the men pray and the Babylonian names when they advise the king. They apparently have no moral qualms about this dual identity, this . . . . Continue Reading »

In t he March 26 issue of the New Republic , Leon Kass and Eric Cohen analyzed the moral crisis of professional American sports. While focusing on the steroid scandals that have rocked Major League Baseball, Kass and Cohen argue that biotechnology is only a symptom of a deeper and broader . . . . Continue Reading »

Again, a Frame move, this time from Aquinas: If “the divine will is perfectly efficacious, it follows not only that things are done, which God wills to be done, but also that they are done in the way that He wills. Now God wills some things to be done necessarily, some contingently, to the . . . . Continue Reading »

Obvious enough, but here goes: God must be outside time, Lord of time, to be within all time. If he was within time as creatures are within time, He could not be present at all times. As John Frame likes to say, our theology should be done in “because of” mode rather than “in . . . . Continue Reading »

Levering also cleverly argues, drawing again from Aquinas, that a “metaphysical” account of God’s being and knowledge accomplishes the aims of “non-metaphysical” accounts, but better. Non-metaphysical theologies claim that classical theism has rendered God inert and . . . . Continue Reading »

Matthew Levering ( Scripture and Metaphysics ) argues that God’s self-knowledge and His knowledge of creation stand and fall together. If His knowledge of the latter is limited, so is His knowledge of Himself: “Could God perfectly comprehend himself if he did not comprehend to what his . . . . Continue Reading »

The folks over at First Things were kind enough to put my paroxysm of march madness on their group blog: http://www.firstthings.com/blog. Go Cougs! . . . . Continue Reading »

The four horns of Zechariah’s second night vision (1:18) are likely horns of an altar, an altar of false worship that scatters Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Four craftsmen, horns of power in their own right, appear on the scene to thrown down the threatening horns. The word for . . . . Continue Reading »

  In the first of his night visions, Zechariah (1:8) sees myrtle trees “in the ravine” (NASB). Some commentators take the word translated as “bottom” or “ravine” as symbolic of the low and depressed condition of the Jewish community in Zechariah’s day. . . . . Continue Reading »