Apropos of nothing in particular, here are some thoughts of mine on St. Athanasius’ classic work On the Incarnation, which I sat down with the other night. Athanasius has a rather noetic understanding of sin (and, consequently of salvation). This really isn’t that surprising considering that many of the Fathers were deeply influenced by Platonic…

Maybe it’s bad blog etiquette to elevate one of my own comments to the status of it’s own blog post, but, well, it’s my blog after all. Anyway, in a comment to this post I said (comments slightly edited): It seems there can be at least three “levels” of morality: 1) Specifically Christian morality 2)…

But then, Bishop Will Willimon is probably a little biased: In his fine new book, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, historian David Hempton shows that part of the genius of early Methodism was its ability to hold together seemingly contradictory ideas in its mind at one time. Against Calvinistic reductionism, we held together the universal…

I thought the light blue background was easier on the eyes than a stark white. What do you all think?

(For previous posts see here and here.) Having argued that, pace Milbank, liberalism is not necessarily a manifestation of ontological violence or ethical nihilism, Insole turns to the more specific criticisms made by Milbank and fellow Radical Orthodoxist Graham Ward about social life in a liberal society. According to Milbank and Graham, says Insole, liberalism…

(See here for previous post.) In chapter 4, “Against Radical Orthodoxy,” Insole argues, um, against Radical Orthodoxy, specifically the claims made by John Milbank, et al. that “political liberalism … is symptomatic of an ontological nihilism” and “that liberalism leads to a social atomism and individualism that can be overcome with the help of a…

Christopher J. Insole, a lecturer in the philosophy of religion at the University of Cambridge, has written a very interesting book called The Politics of Human Frailty: A Theological Defense of Political Liberalism. He sets out to provide a Christian defense of political liberalism against its neo-traditionalist and “Radically Orthodox” detractors. The now-standard critique of…

We’ve become too optimistic, says Steve Chapman: Throughout our history, Americans have been brave, resourceful and ingenious, but we have also been lucky. Consequently, we tend to take good fortune as the norm – and trust that we will always have it. We assume success, which sometimes blinds us to the possibility of failure. We…

Via Generous Orthodoxy comes this interesting paper on “An Augustinian view of empire” by religion professor Charles Mathewes. Prof. Mathewes does a good job avoiding the Manichean worldviews of those for whom America is either omnibenevolent or omnimalevolent (which is, really, what you would expect from someone working in the tradition of that arch-anti-Manicheist Augustine).…

That’s the contention of this piece by Wendy Mcelroy (via Speculative Catholic): Science will not make the abortion debate go away. The conflict is too deep and involves such fundamental questions of ethics and rights as, “What is a human life?” “Can two ‘human beings’ — a fetus and the pregnant woman — claim control…