I recently came across an interesting article by Paul DeHart entitled, “The Ambiguous Infinite: Jüngel, Marion, and the God of Descartes”[1] [thanks to Shane W. for sending this my way!]. In this post, I will comment briefly on Jüngel with regard to Descartes, as my next “guest blogger” will be presenting a series [...]

Given the significance placed on the dialectic of the two powers (potentia absoluta et potentia ordinata Dei) by the moderni (mentioned in the previous post), it would be helpful to spend some time discussing this distinction, its historical background, and its use by the theologians of the via moderna. The distinction of the two powers [...]

The university at Wittenberg, founded in 1502 by Frederick the Wise, served as the context for much of Martin Luther’s early intellectual training. As McGrath observes, upon his return to Wittenberg in the late summer of 1511, Luther “found an Augustinian priory and a university in which three particularly significant elements of later medieval thought [...]

This post is a kind of “follow-up” to the previous short series on Scotus and the univocity of being. Given that finals are approaching and papers are coming due, this will unfortunately be a very informal post with the hopes of at least pointing out features of Radical Orthodoxy’s critique of Scotus and his influence [...]

Scotus, of course, is a Christian philosopher/theologian and takes seriously our predications about God. For Scotus, contra Maimonides and the claims of negative theology, our negative predications of God must be “grounded” in positive statements. For Maimonides (or a thinker in this tradition), one can claim only negative knowledge of God (given God’s simplicity) and [...]

As I noted in the previous post, the doctrine of the univocity of being is a Scotist distinctive. As Peter King observes, according to Scotus, “there is a single unified notion of being that applies equally to substance and accident (and generally to all ten categories), as well as to God and creatures, which serves [...]

This is the first part of a multi-part post focusing on Duns Scotus’ teaching on the univocity of the concept of being. I have to say up front that I am quite sympathetic to certain aspects of Radical Orthodoxy’s critique of Scotus; however, in this series, I am simply attempting to understand Scotus’ teaching and [...]

I finally made it back to Dallas from the Baylor conference, which was, by the way, excellent! Michael Hanby and company deserve a raise for putting together such a tremendous line up of speakers and for extending such a warm welcome to the participants. (In one of the after conference gatherings, Hanby, Peter Candler, and [...]

By Michael VendselSo if Barth is right about Anselm (which is an open question, of course, but not one which I mean to take up here), then how might Anselm respond to someone who doubted the faith?
Two things appear to be certain. One is that Anselm certainly would not tell the non-believer that they are [...]

By Michael Vendsel
This begins a multipart series of posts on Barth and Anselm by Mike Vendsel, my colleague and very good friend. Mike holds a Master of Arts in philosophy from the University of Dallas, a Master of Arts in Religion from Westminster Theological Seminary, is currently working toward a Th.M. at Westminster and is [...]