podcast 202 – Gregory of Nazianzus vs. Noah Worcester on subordinationist texts
“Of myself, I can do nothing.” Is this claim about Jesus’s self/person, or only about his “human nature”?
“Of myself, I can do nothing.” Is this claim about Jesus’s self/person, or only about his “human nature”?
Is Jesus both mutable and immutable?
“Jesus died for our sins. Jesus provided atonement, to reconcile God and humans. Jesus paid a debt we could never pay ourselves. Jesus was willingly a sacrifice for our sins.” How should a thinking Christian understand these claims? In this episode I discuss atonement with Dr. Joshua Thurow.
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:27:30 podcast 4 – Anglicans vs. “Athanasius” Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify As we’ve seen, the “Athanasian Creed” appears to be incoherent, that is, inconsistent with itself. One response is to creatively interpret it in a way which does seem coherent. We will explore this approach in many future episodes.… Read More »podcast 4 – Anglicans vs. “Athanasius”
In the reign of Constantius II yet another council offered language to replace Nicea…
With this episode we continue our series on the 4th-century creed-producing councils of catholic bishops.
St. Ignatius Loyola (1495-1556) founded the Jesuit order and authored a famous book of Spiritual Exercises. There, in a list of rules for correct belief, we have this: Thirteenth Rule. To be right in everything, we ought always to hold that the white which I see, is black, if the Hierarchical Church so decides it, believing that between Christ our Lord, the Bridegroom, and the… Read More »Loyola: tradition trumps sense perception
0.75x 1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 0:0000:33:17 podcast 64 – Dr. Mark C. Murphy on Anselmianism about God Apple PodcastsGoogle PodcastsPlayer EmbedShare Leave a ReviewListen in a New WindowDownloadSoundCloudStitcherSubscribe on AndroidSubscribe via RSSSpotify St. Anselm was the Roman Catholic archbishop of Canterbury, and an important medieval Christian philosopher. He defined the concept of God as “that than which no greater can be thought.” Using this concept,… Read More »podcast 64 – Dr. Mark C. Murphy on Anselmianism about God
If we accept that God is the greatest being there could possibly be, this will guide our theorizing about God. As Dr. Leftow explains, the method can be uncertain and hazardous. Still, it seems an indispensable tool in Christian thinking about God.
Jesus is God, and God can’t be tempted… yet Jesus was tempted?
If Jesus fulfills predictions about Yahweh, does this mean that he’s Yahweh?
Is “conciliar christology” coherent?
Dr. Hurtado on his book God in New Testament Theology.
According to the Arizona Daily Star, ‘Lord’ is fading at some churches, because they think it smacks of patriarchy.
When ideology has taken over to the point that you think it’s inappropriate to describe God almighty in terms that connote power (horrors!)… wow.
And then, what about Jesus?Read More »“Lord” allergies among “mainliners”
Can one be a trinitarian without believing in a tripersonal God?
“Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee… He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.”
Dr. Hurtado explains the term “early high christology” and what it means when applied to his own work.
“I hate wearing this stupid hat.
They didn’t make me a bishop anyways.
At least the cape’s pretty cool.
It’s got St. George’s Cross going on.”
In my last post, I gave some basic definitions for the ‘derivation view’ and the ‘generic view’ of the Trinity, and I said that the historical background for the ‘derivation view’ rests in the Nicene Creed’s claim that
(Q) The Son is begotten from the substance of the Father.
Of course, the meaning of ‘from the substance of the Father’ is not exactly clear, not in a philosophical sense anyways. What exactly is Q supposed to mean? In this post, I want to explain what one interpreter, namely Athanasius, felt was at stake with Q.
Read More »Derivation vs. Generic Theories — part 2: Arianism and the Trinity (JT)
Here’s an overview, with a few comments, of an interesting little public disagreement about Romans 1 and atheism. The discussion was kicked off by evangelical apologist Greg Koukl’s “No Duh” video, where he says that according to Romans 1, all atheists are intentionally suppressing their knowledge of God. Randal Rauser then pointed out a hard to accept implication of Koukl’s claim, which seems to require us to re-think just how… Read More »Are atheists denying the obvious? Koukl vs. Rauser and Feser
First, a few clarifications. By “modalist” I do not mean “Sabellian” or “monarchian.” (Those ancient catholics probably did hold to various forms of modalism, but the term is not a historical one, and can refer to other views which probably no ancient person held.) Nor do I mean modalism by definition to be heretical relative to orthodox/catholic creeds. What I mean is that at least one of these – Father, Son, Spirit – is a mode of the one God, in some sense a way that God is. That last phrase is deliberately ambiguous.
In his recent Christmas sermon the Pope said:
In all three Christmas Masses, the liturgy quotes a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, which describes the epiphany that took place at Christmas in greater detail: “A child is born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace. Wide is his dominion in a peace that has no end” (Is 9:5f.). … A child, in all its weakness, is Mighty God. A child, in all its neediness and dependence, is Eternal Father. …
God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and brings a message that is peace. (emphases and link added)
This last phrase, X has appeared as S, is ambiguous. It could mean Read More »Is the Pope a Modalist?