While preparing for a talk in NSA’s grad program, I had occasion to go back and reread Rowan Williams’ lecture entitled “The Body’s Grace.” Doing so I was reminded of the experience of some medieval mystics, and I myself had some small glad participation in the great cloud of unknowing.
Seeming Not to Care
I would like to move one of the comments from my last post on Hart to the top of this post. “The reason I think I have more ground to stand on in rejecting an evil God for a seemingly “weak” one, is that I think this the more scriptural route. God will show us …
Why Essentialism is Essential
“The first major point in our look at the roots of postmodernism is the rejection of essentialism, which takes several forms in different postmodern thinkers. In general, essentialism is the idea that things have real qualities, independent of our knowing them” (Millard Erickson, The Postmodern World, p. 36).
In It Together
These posts of mine on Hart’s book Doors of the Sea have generated a goodly amount of comments. So before considering his next section, allow me a quick comment on one point that has surfaced in those comments, I believe more than once. An attempt has been made to distinguish between a logical mystery (how …
Constantine’s Real Mistake
Just a quick note on Christ and Christendom, and some of our current political snarls. In my political writing, I have made no secret of my yearning for a Christendom 2.0. This means that I believe the conversion of Constantine was a decided improvement over what had been going on before. This does not mean …
To the Law and to the Testimony
In the next section, we come to the hinge of Hart’s objections. And it provides us with a textbook case of what happens when very intelligent people go beyond what it is written. Certain indisputable truths provide the premises for them, and then they reason from those premises until they come to a conclusion that …
The Breakers of Jehovah
Yesterday’s message was on Psalm 42. The title comes from verse 7 — “Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” This is just one of many passages that has direct relevance to our on-going discussions in the “Doors of the Sea” thread.
One Follows His Reasoning
“If I had to choose an image to sum up our times, I would not choose from among the usual ones, such as the Nuclear Age, the Technological Society, the Age of Anxiety, the Computer Generation, the Affluent Society, or the Space Era. I would call it the Age of Noise” (Michael D. O’Brian, A …
Hands in Pockets, Whistling
Hart’s second section in the second half of his book depends almost entirely on good writing, a goodly dose of mysticism and lots of handwaving. Here is how that section concludes: “It is impossible for the infinite God of love directly or positively to will evil (physical or moral), even in a provisional or transitory …
Georgia On My Mind
Since the Russian tanks began to roll into Georgia, I have been mulling it over, reading about it, and wanted to offer just a few cautions. As fun as it might be to have the Russians for enemies again, right back in the psychic spot they occupied my entire childhood, the snarl over there ain’t …