Every god claims in some fashion to be Alpha and Omega, the source of everything and the end toward which everything is moving, the deep past and the deep future. Only the Triune God can actually be Alpha and Omega. A monadic God can perhaps be Alpha (though I’m doubtful), the source. But he . . . . Continue Reading »
David Luy has a helpful article in the April 2011 issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology , where he summarizes how von Balthasar harmonizes his Trinitarian theology with his claim that Christ, especially in the cross, is the “form” of God’s glory and beauty. he . . . . Continue Reading »
God Himself is speech, language, Word. This is implicit in the opening pages of the Bible. God created heaven and earth, and when we see how that works in more detail we find that He does it by speech. The God revealed in Genesis 1 is a Creator, Maker, Actor, but He is all these things because He . . . . Continue Reading »
Nyssa: “Do you see the circle of glory among those who are alike? The Son is glorified by the Spirit; the Father is glorified by the Son; again the Son has his glory from the Father and the only-begotten thus becomes the glory of the Spirit. For with what shall the Father be glorified but . . . . Continue Reading »
During the fourth century, the church had in an intense debate about the nature of the Son who became flesh. Does the Father choose to create a Son, as Arius believed? Or is having a Son essential to the Father’s very existence as God? These debates seem tedious and irrelevant. Can anyone . . . . Continue Reading »
Anatolios sums up a wonderful exposition of Nyssa’s epistemology with this: “The distinctive character of Gregory’s epistemology . . . lies not so much in delimiting the extent of information that can be gleaned by the mind (he insists there is no limit) as in locating the act of . . . . Continue Reading »
Anatolios is careful not to claim that Nyssa is “fashionably postmodern,” but by characterizing Eunomius’s viewpoint as “logocentric” he acknowledges some “irresistible, if fragmentary parallels” between Nyssa and postmodern sensibilities about the . . . . Continue Reading »
Anatolios summarizes the soteriological consequences of the modalist-leaning theology of Marcellus of Ancyra this way: “Marcellus’s doctrine of God depicts divine being as a monologue - God is singular, monas ; in his own being, he is silent; in relation to creation, he utters his Word . . . . Continue Reading »
Anatolios argues that one of the differences between theologians of the unity of will like Arius (Father begets Son by will) and theologians of the unity of being like Alexander and Athanasius (Son is of the Father’s very being) is the location of mystery. Arius located the apophatic limit in . . . . Continue Reading »
Anatiolios offers this explanation of Athanasius’ defense of homoousios : “the meaning of the Nicene homoousios is contained in its function as a guide to a certain way of reading Scripture. An immediate hermeneutical consequence of this principle is that efforts to understand this term . . . . Continue Reading »
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