Not that love dispenses with knowing or requires some sacrifice of intelligibility, but love becomes, instead of and in the place of intuitus, the keeper of evidence, the royal road to knowledge: “When speaking of things human, we say that we should know them before loving them—a saying which has become proverbial. Yet the saints,…
Category
Theology
My Big Problem With Sin
I am at an interesting place right now in regard to thinking about the subject of sin. After hearing sermon after sermon on the subject, reading book after book, having conversation after conversation, I’m convinced of pretty much one thing: For me, the biggest problem that human beings have with sin, is that we try…
What theology needs is more copulation.
What theology needs is more copulation. And postmodern theopoetics may well provide it. The word copulation, of course, denotes coupling: the bringing together and/or union of two things. The related words “copula” and “copulative” are grammatical terms, used to describe the linking of elements in a sentence. How unfortunate, then, that the fertile term copulation…
Truth, Lost in Translation
“Truth and trust are closely related words, as displayed in the archaic form of the word for truth, “troth,” as in “to pledge your troth.” “Truth” at its root signifies a covenant of trustworthiness, in a marriage contract. To be true to another means to be trusty! This root meaning is not peculiar to European…
You be lovers, in my image.
Greg Boyd is the pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota. I’ve been listening to his series on Divine love and was so delighted by one of his teachings about contracts vs. covenants that I transcribed a bunch of the sermon to post here. Here is Boyd speaking about the difference between contracts and covenants….
Who you think God is, God isn’t.
Richard Rohr writes: Our usual definitions of God depict him as omnipotent, infinite, perfect in every way. Yet if the suffering Jesus is the image and revelation of the invisible God (Col. 1:15), this is totally at odds with all the other philosophical and theological definitions of a supreme being. Jesus doesn’t fit. Even after…
The Beginning of Wisdom
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom –Psalm 111:10 Last night at Valley Mosaic we enjoyed a great discussion about fear. The discussion centered on the above quoted verse from Psalm 111. The conversation ranged from defining what fear means to each of us, to speculating on what the Bible means when…
Exploring the Infinite
“Therefore the theology of negation is so necessary to the theology of affirmation that without it God would not be worshiped as the infinite God but as creature; and such worship is idolatry, for it gives to an image that which only belongs to truth itself.” –Nicholas of Cusa The only proper name for God,…
Biblical Literalism a Modern Invention?
Origen (c.185–254) was an early Christian writer, scholar and theologian. He is probably most well known for his desire to fuse Greek Philosophy with Christianity and for his eccentric doctrine of “the fabulous preexistence of souls” and also for his allegoric view of the Bible. Despite some of his more radical views, he was never…
The Bible: Inspiration and Divine Invitation
“Why pluck one string when you can strum the guitar!” –Aaron Weis of mewithoutYou “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” (KJV) -2 Timothy 3:16 My friend Matthew Barlow and I recently had a conversation about Divine Inspiration and how people…