A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Theology & Faith

  • The marginalization of the mystical

    Luke Timothy Johnson writes on keeping the “exoteric” (legal, moral, ritual) and “esoteric” (mystical, devotional) aspects of religion together. Both, he says, are necessary for the religious life to flourish, but western monotheisms–Islam and Christianity particularly–have become too focused on the exoteric. Read more

  • “Reason” vs. reasons

    I want to zero in further on one small part of the John Polkinghorne interview excerpted below: I think that the fundamental question about something, whether science or religion, is not, “Is it reasonable?” as if we know beforehand what is reasonable, or what shape rationality has. The better question is, “What makes you think Read more

  • Proof vs. “motivated belief”

    I liked this interview with physicist/Anglican priest John Polkinghorne. In particular, his distinction between proving a belief and having a belief that is well motivated is worth highlighting: Is it important to be able to prove the existence of God? Well, I don’t think it’s possible to prove the existence of God. There are many Read more

  • The gift of self-forgetfulness

    Blog-friend Jeremy, formerly of The Kibitzer, Eating Words, and other sundry ventures, is blogging again at Don’t Be Hasty. Today he has a great post on the Lutheran understanding of sin as being “curved in” on oneself. This understanding of the human condition–and the corresponding understanding of justification by faith–is a big part of what Read more

  • The trouble with atonement

    I’ve been helping to lead an adult Sunday School class at our church using a video series for “progressive” Christians. I have some problems with the theological positions taken by the series and the way they’re presented, but it at least stimulates discussion. The segment we watched today was about violence and its relation to Read more

  • Luther’s fourfold (fivefold?) garland of prayer

    Chris at the Lutheran Zephyr has a clear and helpful summary of some of Martin Luther’s teachings on prayer, particularly his commendation of the “fourfold garland” method of prayer and his emphasis on making use of the materials contained in the catechism. As Chris says, in “A Simple Way to Pray,” Luther advised his barber Read more

  • Another thought on religion and values

    In thinking about the relation between ethics and theology, it helps to distinguish the metaphysical aspects of this problem from the epistemological ones. Or, as St. Thomas would say, the order of being from the order of knowing. Value, or ethics, may depend metaphysically on the existence of God, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Read more

  • God, value, and “secular reasons”

    Camassia and Eve Tushnet have been discussing this Stanley Fish column that takes aim at the idea of “secular reasons”–reasons which, according to Fish, “because they do not reflect the commitments or agendas of any religion, morality or ideology, can be accepted as reasons by all citizens no matter what their individual beliefs and affiliations.” Read more

  • Edwards on animal redemption

    If the entire creation–not just human beings–is to be taken up into the divine life (deified, to use the term Edwards prefers), then it makes sense to ask whether individual, sentient, non-human creatures (i.e., animals) will participate in the new creation. Edwards thinks that, based on the character of the God revealed in Jesus, we Read more

  • Denis Edwards on new creation: radical transformation and real continuity

    One problem for any Christian eschatology–an underappreciated one, it seems to me–is reconciling it with the rather bleak view of the universe’s future provided to us by modern science. We’re told that our universe will, after billions of years of expansion, either collapse back in on itself in a “big crunch” expand endlessly into an Read more