“Classical theism” is supposed to have given us a static, immobile God. On the contrary: One of Athanasius’ central complaints against the Arians is that they denied the inherent fruitfulness, generative power, and creativity of God. If the Son is not eternal, . . . . Continue Reading »
Every word we speak, Derrida argues, wanders off on its own, and we can’t protect or control it. True enough with regard to human words. But God’s Word is a living Person, the eternal Son, a Word equal to the speaker with the resources to fend for Himself. This Word, though . . . . Continue Reading »
Athanasius insists that the Father must have an eternal Son because the Father’s essence could never have been imperfect: “if He is called the eternal offspring of the Father, He is rightly so called. For never was the essence of the Father imperfect ( ateles ), that what . . . . Continue Reading »
Perhaps the most obvious and easiest resolution of the conundrums that Augustine explores is a perichoretic one. Does the Father have wisdom “in Himself”? Yes, because the Wisdom that is the Son dwells in Him by the Spirit. Does the Father possess His being “in . . . . Continue Reading »
1 Corinthians 1:24 says that Christ is the power and wisdom of God. Augustine spends two books of de Trinitate trying to figure out what that means. In Book 6, he tries out the notion that the Father’s power and wisdom is simply the power and wisdom that He begets as Son, so that . . . . Continue Reading »
Augustine argues ( de Trinitate 5.1.6) that claims about human beins are spoken either secundum substantiam or secundum accidens . The latter category includes relational terms, statements about us ad aliquid , with reference to another. That is, for humans, in contrast to God, . . . . Continue Reading »
Addressing the question of whether God is “object” to us, Jenson says that objectivity is essential to conversation: “In all true mutual discourse . . . each must be both subject for and object of the other. As I am present to address you, I am a subject and you are my . . . . Continue Reading »
In his superb introduction to the New City Press edition of Augustine’s de Trinitate ( Trinity, The (Works of Saint Augustine A Translation for the 21st Century) ), Edmund Hill offers a chiastic outline of the treatise: 1. Introduction, 1 2. Divine missions: exegetical, 2-4 3. . . . . Continue Reading »
In Epistle 11, Augustine attempts to explain an apparent contradiction in the Catholic faith. On the one hand, all of God does all that God does, since the Persons of the Trinity are inseparable and act inseparably: “For the union of Persons in the Trinity is in the . . . . Continue Reading »
Given the “canon” that Scripture speaks “doubly” of Christ (sometimes divinely, sometimes humanly), it would seem easy for Athanasius to shuffle passages about the Father giving and the Son receiving to the “humanity” side of things. He doesn’t, and . . . . Continue Reading »
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