Cunningham again, arguing that a creation made by a loving Creator cannot be pure nature: “Traditionally, God’s long-term ‘involvement’ with an care for the world has been emphasized through the theological category of grace . In creating the world, God wills into . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius points to the biblical teaching of creation from nothing to prove that creation is in its nature changeable. It’s not simply that something comes from nothing is fragile, unstable, dependent; it also seems that creatures have a changeable nature because their origin is . . . . Continue Reading »
Mike Bull responds to my comments on Athanasius’ discussion of purity and bodily secretions: “I agree with Luther, but isn’t the point more that what comes out is ‘worthless”? Moving beyond the Old Testament pedagogical purpose of ceremonial uncleanness, affirming the . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius’ letter to Amun (354) is a meditation on purity. Defilement, he argues, occurs “when we commit sin, that foulest of things.” That is what Jesus meant when He said that we are defiled by what comes out - out of the heart . Bodily functions, by contrast, do . . . . Continue Reading »
Nature and grace has been a key theological problem at least since the middle ages. But the distinction is often misplaced. As used in Athanasius, for example, the terms refer not to two different realms within the creation, or two different sorts of capacities of human nature. Rather, . . . . Continue Reading »
It is not good for man to be alone. Hegel says, It is impossible. “I have my self-consciousness not in myself but in the other. I am satisfied and have peace with myself only in this other - and I am only because I have peace with myself; if I did not have it, then I would be a . . . . 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 »
The distinction of image and likeness has been a common one in the history of theology, East and West, and in the West at least it overlaps with the nature/grace dualism. Image for Bonventure “denotes a kind of ‘shape,’ that is, a quantitative feature of quality or a . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Pickstock, Augustine’s musical ontology is not a mere subordination of space to time, or a univocal “Dionysian flow”: “just as important as the priority of time, for Augustine, is the insistence on articulation into distinct musical units or phrases, the . . . . Continue Reading »
Nothing comes from nothing. That seems obvious, and Christians have traditionally had some difficulty explaining why creatio ex nihilo is a defensible violation of that basic principle. According to Catherine Pickstock, Augustine viewed creation ex nihilo as the most rational position. . . . . Continue Reading »
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