A Thinking Reed

  • Cur deus leo

    Elliot has a really cool post on understanding the Atonement through Science Fiction and Fantasy stories. Of course his imagined disputants don’t seem to be any better at reaching consensus than existing theologians…

  • It’s the national security state, stupid

    Andrew Bacevich, reviewing several new books on the presidency, contends that the Imperial Presidency is a symptom, not the cause of our current troubles. The underlying problem is the state of permanent semi-mobilization that the country entered into after World War II and the attendant national security apparatus that it gave rise to. In matters…

  • Respect for life as a communal value

    In yesterday’s Boston Globe, Harvard political philosopher Michael J. Sandel accused President Bush of moral inconsistency with respect to the President’s position on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). According to Sandel, if Bush regards the destruction of embryos as tantamount to killing a full-grown person, then he ought logically call for a…

  • Easter!

    Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on…

  • Good Friday

    Psalm 22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 10

    Faced with the need for some kind of satisfaction for sin, Anselm deduces that “If it be necessary, therefore, as it appears, that the heavenly kingdom be made up of men, and this cannot be effected unless the aforesaid satisfaction be made, which none but God can make and none but man ought to make,…

  • Ratzinger vs. vicarious atonement?

    Continuing with the Holy Week theme, Pontifications has posted an excerpt from then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity that seems quite opposed to the traditional idea of vicarious atonement: In the Bible the Cross does not appear as part of a mechanism of injured right; on the contrary, in the Bible the Cross is quite the…

  • Denying penal substitution ≠ heresy

    This radio talk by Anglican priest Jeffrey John attracted the usual accusations of liberal heresy before it was even actually broadcast, but upon reading the transcript I don’t see anything particularly unorthodox. Granted John takes issue with the theory of penal substitution, but he’s hardly the first to do so, and the universal church hasn’t…

  • Notes on Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo: 9

    Okay, the argument so far: Anselm has contended that humankind has fallen into sin by failing to render to God the honor due him (i.e. obedience). As a result we threaten to fail to acheive God’s intended purpose for us, namely, being part of the “celestial estate” and consequently we disrupt the order and beauty…

  • Animal time travelers

    Here’s a NY Times article on some recent research which seems to indicate that at least some animals have a sense of the past and the future. The general trend of research in these areas seems to be toward showing that the mental lives of animals are more complex than has often been thought. This…