Category: Christian Doctrine
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Substance, Supposit, Incarnation, Trinity, and the Heresy of Nestorius
I need to answer three questions. This post addresses only the first. 1. What is the difference between an Aristotelian primary substance and a supposit (hypostasis, suppositum)? 2. Is there any non-theological basis for this distinction? 3. If the answer to (2) is negative, is the addition of suppposita to one's Aristotelian ontology a case of…
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Christology, Reduplicatives, and Qua-Entities
For Dave Bagwill, who is trying to understand the Chalcedonian definition. ……………. Consider this triad, and whether it is logically consistent: 1. The man Jesus = the 2nd Person of the Trinity.2. The 2nd Person of the Trinity exists necessarily.3. The man Jesus does not exist necessarily. Each of these propositions is one that a…
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One Person, Two Natures
A reader inquires, The Creed of Chalcedon (A.D 451) set forth the following dogma, among others: (my emphasis) ".. one and the same Christ ….to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being…
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Accepts the Apostles’ Creed, Balks at the Athanasian Creed: Second-Class Christian?
The following from a reader: I have been accused, on a forum, of being a second-class Christian because I have stated that I cannot understand Trinitarian doctrine [as presented in the Athanasian creed]. I have stated that I do accept the Apostles' Creed, but that is not seemingly good enough. So I have asked for…
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Judging People
People can and ought to be judged by the company they keep, the company they keep away from, and those who attack them. Addendum (6/23): S. N. counters thusly: For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking,…
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Good Friday: At the Mercy of a Little Piece of Iron
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, tr. Craufurd, Routledge 1995, p. 75: The infinite which is in man is at the mercy of a little piece of iron; such is the human condition; space and time are the cause of it. It is impossible to handle this piece of iron without suddenly reducing the infinite which…
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Christian Physicalism?
J. P. Moreland is against it. Me too. More generally, I oppose any amalgamation of classical theism and materialism about the mind. (See my "Could a Classical Theist be a Physicalist?" Faith and Philosophy, vol. 15, no. 2, April 1998, pp. 160-180.) Here are some excerpts from Moreland's piece: Christianity is a dualist, interactionist religion…
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Miniscule and Majuscule; catholic and Catholic
I am too catholic to be much of a Catholic. But if one needs institutionalized religion, one could do far worse, assuming one can stomach the secular-humanist liberal namby-pambification and wussification that the post-Vatican II church can't seem to resist, the dilution of doctrine and tradition that empties into the nauseating Church of Nice. There…
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A Christian Paradox
Man is godlike and therefore proud. He becomes even more godlike when he humbles himself. The central thought of Christianity, true or not, is one so repellent to the natural human pride of life that one ought at least to entertain the unlikelihood of its having a merely human origin. The thought is that God…
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The Lost Early History of Unitarian Christian Theology
A lecture by Dale Tuggy.
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The Original Christian Revelation: The Bible or the Teaching of Jesus?
Richard Swinburne, Revelation, Oxford, 1992, pp. 102-103: . . . there has been a strain in Protestantism, with its immense reverence for Scripture, to write of Holy Scripture itself as the original [propositional] revelation; what was given by God was the Bible. But that surely fits very badly with other things that those same Protestants…
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Kolakowski on Catholicism
London Karl points us to this interview, some of which I reproduce here: It would be silly, foolish, to object to the Church on the grounds that it is "traditionalist". The whole strength of the Church is that it is faithful to its tradition – otherwise, what is the Church for? If the Church is going…
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The Devirilization of Priest and Liturgy in the Novus Ordo Mass
I would like to return to the practice of the religion of my youth, I really would. Nothing of the usual sort holds me back: not the sex monkey, not illicit loves or addictions, not worldly ambition or the demands of career, not the thoughtlessness of the worldling mesmerized by the play of transient phenomena,…
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Good Friday: At the Mercy of a Little Piece of Iron
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace, tr. Craufurd, Routledge 1995, p. 75: The infinite which is in man is at the mercy of a little piece of iron; such is the human condition; space and time are the cause of it. It is impossible to handle this piece of iron without suddenly reducing the infinite which…
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Lent for Atheists?
Apparently, there are some atheists who are adopting Lenten-type practices without abandoning their atheist beliefs. This ought to be cautiously applauded: we all can profit morally from a bit of voluntary abstinence. One cannot live well without (moderate) asceticism. (See William James on Self-Denial.) Better self-controlled atheists than atheists 'gone wild.' But I would urge these…