As Balthasar observes, both the Old and the New Covenant manifest a “prophetic language,” that is, “the language of decision.” The formal unity shared between the two testaments is found in the articulation of a covenant between God and human beings. In light of the fact that this covenant involves both blessings and [...]

God’s love, though never changing, is yet active and dynamic as perceived and received by us. One of the many aspects to which I am drawn in Balthasar’s work is his appeal to concrete experiences of human relationships in order to help us see the mysterious and yet very real connection between loving God [...]

“It is always the dogma of the removal of guilt through representative substitution that shows most decisively whether an approach is merely anthropologically or truly christologically (that is, theologically) centered. Without this dogma, it always remains possible to interpret everything in rational terms as an expression of human possibility, no matter how much historical [...]

Concluding Thoughts
As I mentioned in an earlier post, one weakness of Oberman’s essay is that he is not in dialogue with the most current Roman Catholic documents on the relation of Scripture and tradition, viz., Dei Verbum. I recently read this document and have quoted below a few relevant (and lengthy) passages for reflection. The [...]

In the fourth section of his essay, Oberman concludes his historical survey with a discussion of the developments in Roman Catholic theology on the relation of Scripture and tradition from Trent to the present [1]. According to Oberman, the T2 view as espoused by Trent has been preserved through the “authority of the Roman catechism [...]

Oberman begins section three by distinguishing between “Tradition I” (T1) and “Tradition II” (T2). T1 stands for what has been described as the “exegetical tradition of interpreted scripture,” whereas T2 represents the “two-sources theory which allows for an extra-biblical oral tradition” (p. 280). As we have seen, both T1 and T2 have their medieval supporters. [...]

In the second section of his essay, Oberman moves into a discussion of the concept of tradition that characterized the fourth and fifth centuries. First, however, he summarizes two important points of the pre-Augustinian concept of tradition: (1) “The immediate divine origin of tradition together with the insistence on a clearly circumscribed series of historical [...]

In chapter twelve of his work, Dawn of the Reformation, Heiko Oberman discusses the issue of the relation of Scripture and tradition. As Oberman observes, the 16th century was marked with “bitter polemics concerning the source and norm of the Church’s knowledge of God’s revelation. Traditionally this is described as the clash of the sola [...]

“The sign of Christ is legible only if we read his human love and self-gift unto death as the manifestation of absolute love. Seeing this relationship would prevent us from putting his humanity on a pedestal, making him a hero or superhuman demigod [...] and thereby obscuring the real manifestation of love. What [...]

The following is taken from a lecture given by Dr. Michael Foley at the University of Dallas (March 8, 2007). *** Dr. Foley addressed the various ways in which one might respond to a common criticism of the Confessions, viz., it is unorganized, lacking in cohesion, and more or less without any sense of structure [...]

In chapter five of Love Alone is Credible, Balthasar observes that in order for God to reveal his love for the world, this love—even in its wholly-otherness—must be recognizable by the world. Paradoxically, from the (humanly speaking) grandest to the most selfish lover, each must in some inchoate way already have at least a [...]

“God, who condescends graciously to his creature, does not want to lay hold of him and fulfill him in an external manner, but rather in the most intimate way possible. Historical revelation in the Son aims at a transformative subjective appropriation; its goal is the revelation of the Holy Spirit of freedom and adoption [...]

A guest post by Mike Vendsel
A further Reformed criticism of Lutheranism has to do with the intelligibility of the ascension and the parousia. If the body of Christ is currently omnipresent, then in what sense is Christ no longer with His disciples? And in what sense does His future parousia represent a break with [...]

A guest post by Mike Vendsel
Farrow begins with Catholicism and does so by going back to Thomas, or rather to Catherine Pickstock’s defense of Thomas’s doctrine of transubstantiation. Significantly condensing her argument, he suggests that the weakness of her defense is its tendency to “regularize or normalize the church’s eucharistic situation in which the ontological [...]

A Guest post by Mike Vendsel
In an article entitled “Between the Rock and a Hard Place: In Support of (something like) a Reformed View of the Eucharist” Douglas Farrow evaluates the Reformed understanding of the eucharist (specifically Calvin’s) and along the way interacts with Catherine Pickstock and others within Radical Orthodoxy [1]. What follows [...]

The kind folks at Pontifications have tagged me as part of a new meme called “thinking bloggers” currently making its way through the blogworld. To play along, I must list five blogs that I consider thoughtful and which I read regularly. Below are my picks—all of which are now officially tagged:
1. The Church and Postmodern [...]

I recently read an excellent article by Catherine Pickstock entitled, “Thomas Aquinas and the Quest for the Eucharist,” (Modern Theology Vol 15 [April 1999]). I wish that I had time to summarize and comment on the entire article, but given that the semester is quickly coming to its end, the following lengthy excerpts will have [...]