Bonhoeffer ( Ethics ) sees conscience as a manifestation of the “disunited” man after the fall. Instead of finding knowledge in union with God, conscience draws us to ourselves. We want to know the truth and the good by reference to ourselves as the origin. Conscience “derives the . . . . Continue Reading »
Last week, Pat Robertson told his viewers that he believes Alzheimer’s disease to be a “kind of death,” a basis for the un-afflicted spouse to seek divorce and move on with their life—so long as they act mercifully and provide a means for care of that spouse. This view . . . . Continue Reading »
Bavinck says, in defense of the necessity of anthropomorphism, that “We simply must acknowledge that even thought our finite understanding of God is limited, it is no less true! We possess exhaustive knowledge of very little; all reality, including the visible and physical, remains something . . . . Continue Reading »
The Farrer quotations come pouring in. OK, trickling. Here’s one from a reader, Jeff Peterson: “Man, once endowed with speech, starts making an inventory of the universe. The speaker, having labelled everything else, labels himself, and becomes an item on his own list. He is now no more . . . . Continue Reading »
As Robert Jenson and Michel Rene Barnes have emphasized, Gregory of Nyssa’s theology (in, eg, Against Eunomius ) centers on a meditation on God’s infinity. Greeks were reluctant to say that God is infinite, since an infinite thing cannot, by Hellenic lights, have a nature. A nature is . . . . Continue Reading »
Isaiah says more about the uniqueness of God than any other Old Testament writer (especially Isaiah 43-45). Why did Yahweh wait so long to say this? Did he perhaps have to set up empires, deliver His people into exile, and then send them back before He could persuade the world that there was One . . . . Continue Reading »
“Christianity isn’t a list of rules, it’s a relationship” is how the cliché goes and I’ve never been very fond of it. While I agree that Christianity is about the transformative power of the gospel in the real lives of God’s children and not about keeping . . . . Continue Reading »
Christian Smith’s How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps is fairly predictable. His criticisms of evangelicalism are on target in the main, and his Catholic arguments are pretty standard. Smith is careful about his audience: He is . . . . Continue Reading »
Bavinck has these wise words about God’s will: “We can make as many distinctions in the will of God (as it relates to his creatures) as there are creatures; the free will of God is as richly variegated as that whole world is. Most important is the fact that God is father to all his . . . . Continue Reading »
Our culture seems to be in a tug of war over who represents the truest form of feminism. The political landscape has no doubt opened up this can of worms with Bachman and Palin discussed as examples of “evangelical feminism.” Both of these women have proven that women are capable and . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
