Now, for a quick break in our Richard of St. Victor series, so that I can explain the point of my implausible yarn about a gnome. Tertullian, Irenaeus, and other late-2nd and early 3rd century catholic thinkers subscribed to what we can all the Logos theory. This christological theory has three main elements:
God’s internal Word (logos) [...]
Little known fact: overwork causes one’s neck to become invisible!
After an embarrassing amount of time, I’ve finally finished my encyclopedia entry on the Trinity for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (as well as lengthy supplementary documents on the history of Trinity doctrines, Judaic and Islamic objections, and unitarianism).
Since I can’t thank them in the entry, [...]
10 parts in the series so far… but how many points?
Time to wrap up this long in the tooth series with a summary, and a few extra thoughts along the way. In parts one and two, we laid out simple arguments that Christ is divine, or that he is the one God. Careful examination of [...]
Nothing is appropriately worshipped except God.
Jesus is appropriately worshipped.
Therefore, Jesus is God.
This argument is valid. But is it also sound?
It may depend on what is meant by the term “worship”. It seems to me that many contemporary Christian philosophers and theologians understand “worship” in a way that makes 1 true by definition.
A man, and a god?
What is monotheism, anyway? This may seem like a stupid question, one with a trivial answer: belief in one god, or in one divine being.
But we’ve seen in this series that it is by no means obvious what the concept of a god / divine being is. I hazarded an analysis [...]
Marc Chagall’s The Praying Jew
Last time we looked carefully at the verse normally translated as “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.” We saw, surprisingly, that on any credible translation, it is not itself an assertion of monotheism – although it’ll probably be consistent with monotheism – depending on what is [...]
“Oops… Sorry. Forgot that my name is too holy to be said, or even written. Boy, is my face red!”
As reported in Christianity Today, and in other places, the Catholic hierarchy is forbidding the liturgical use of “Yahweh” (YHWH, Yahveh, Jehovah). Why? Because Jews consider it improper, and we ought not offend needlessly.
On the face [...]
Is Jesus addressed or described as “god” or “God” (Greek: theos) in the New Testament? Yes. But quite a bit less often than you might think. Theologian Murray Harris wrote a whole book about this, pictured above.
I don’t endorse this as a particularly good book – Harris, like many a theologian, mixes linguistic sophistication and [...]
What does it mean to say that this dude is a god (or is divine)?
In this series, we first set out an important argument from Christian theology and apologetics about Jesus. In the second installment, we simplified the argument in two ways, and pointed out that to have valid argument, we need to avoid equivocal [...]
Don’t just say ‘Jesus’, smartypants.
This series is about a guy, Jesus, and a word, “god”. Consider this argument:
1. Jesus is divine.
2. There is only one god.
3. Therefore, Jesus is the one god.
This argument, as it stands, is invalid. But, not to worry
“This is some writing about that which nothing can be written about. Pretty cool, huh?”
I’ve been reading Gregory of Nazianzus lately, his famous Theological Orations (c. 380 CE), wherein he expounds and defends what scholars call the pro-Nicene consensus about the Trinity – a viewpoint which developed in the latter half of the 4th c. [...]
Hombre…RUN!!!!
Enthusiastic positive mysterians tend to be complacent traditionalists about Bible interpretation – that is, people who are pretty sure that their Christian group (e.g. Catholicism, Reformed Christianity, or maybe simply small-c catholicism) has got the Bible (generally) right. There is a reason for this.
The reason is that if you’re trying to reason your way towards [...]
I discuss mystery-epistemology and Bible interpretation with James and Andrew at City of God.
And Scott (previous trinities posts) goes to town on Augustine, Henry of Ghent, and John Duns Scotus at Per Caritatem, where they’re having a Augustine Blog Conference.
Technorati Tags: City of God, Augustine, Per Caritatem, mysteries, mysterian, mysterianism
Mmmm… baby soup – the delicious end to any traditional baptism.
“Father, Son, Holy Spirit”? Or “Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier”? The editors of the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism weigh in here: Blessed Be the Name of the Lord | Christianity Today
While I share the editors’ irritation with politically correct revision of liturgical and theological language, I [...]
“I thank thee, O Lord, that Thou hast given me the ability
to quickly read this copy of The Message, and easily discern
what it really means, unlike that jerk Flanders.”
Some interesting and disturbing comments from R.P.C. Hanson, on Bible interpretation in the era of the 4th century “Arian” controversy. This comes near the end of this [...]
Umm… is there any other way out?
A wise comment from the late great patristics scholar R.P.C. Hanson, in this book.
Eusebius of Emesa in one of his discourses has quite a long passage about allegorizing. He allows that it cannot altogether be rejected but he is very cautious about its use. It tends to read meanings [...]
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