First Things RSS Feed - Thomas Weinandy, O.F.M. Cap.

Is Pope Francis a Heretic?

Tue, 07 May 2019 06:00:00 -0400

Nineteen theologians and academics recently released a letter to all Catholic bishops throughout the world, accusing Pope Francis of being a heretic and urging the bishops to take action, even canonical, in order to rectify this dire state of affairs.

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Swinburne’s A Priori Errors

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Following a great Christian tradition going back to the early apologists themselves, Richard Swinburne, in Was Jesus God? (Oxford University Press, 2008), takes up the noble and praiseworthy enterprise of providing rational arguments for accepting not only the truth that Jesus is truly God but also other central doctrines of the Christian faith. In so doing, he wishes to clarify and enunciate these doctrines so that the faith that accepts them is more reasonably founded.

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Does God Suffer?

Thu, 01 Nov 2001 00:00:00 -0500

Some readers may think this an odd article to be published by “a journal of religion and public life.” It is an exercise in theology, philosophy, and the history of ideas on a question that may seem far removed from anything that might be called public life. In fact, however, it is pressingly pertinent to the Church’s most important public task: communicating the gospel, and doing so in a culture whose dominant virtues are compassion, empathy, and, as it is sometimes put, feeling one another’s pain. In such a culture, it is very tempting to speak of God as compassionate, empathic, and, therefore, suffering as we suffer. I believe that temptation should be resisted. Understanding why it should calls for a careful examination of relevant considerations in theology, philosophy, and the history of ideas.

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