“The crucial difference between the Catholic and common uses of the word “mystery” lies here. When the term is applied to divine realities, the mystery involved is by definition without end. This is not to say (as nominalists, in contrast to Aquinas, seemed to want to say) that the things of God are permanently or
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Against every dictate of common (or is it merely human?) sense, the apostle Paul once audaciously claimed that, in his own intentional crafting of his gospel message, he adhered to this startling PR strategy: “Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross
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The overwhelming majority of commentators and scholars who reflect upon Paul’s letter to the Romans agree that 1:16-17 is the thesis of the apostle’s entire vision. Succintly, Romans is all about the ‘revelation of God’s righteousness.’ The great hope of the Old Testament, in which the people of God looked forward longingly to that coming day when God would at last
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“One man looks at a dying bird and thinks there’s nothing but unanswered pain. That death’s got the final word, it’s laughing at him. Another man sees that same bird, feels the glory, feels something smiling through it.” (From the opening monologue in The Thin Red Line) “For the early Christians the knowledge of the
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My regular reading practice of the Gospels has been most acutely altered over the past few years as a direct result of what now strikes me as a painfully obvious hermeneutical principle. In sum, I have learned to read all (without exception–I really do mean all) of Jesus’ sayings and actions in light of His coming death at the end of
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Paul’s warning in 1 Corinthians 6:18 often strikes me as a mystifying exaltation of sexual sin above other sorts of moral failures [note: I do not find persuasive the suggestions of some scholars that this statement actually reflects a Corinthian slogan rather than Paul’s own viewpoint; we're not off the hook that easily]. Why should deviance from
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David Foster Wallace, the enigmatic and fascinating author of Infinite Jest and (the posthumously published) The Pale King, gave a remarkable commencement address at Kenyon College in 2005, which the Wall Street Journal published here. While this transcribed speech has already circulated widely on the internet, I encourage you to check it out if you have not
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