As we know from Augustine’s Confessions, what proved to be a particularly important breakthrough for Augustine was Ambrose’s explanation of the “spiritual” interpretation of Scripture.  Commenting on Ambrose’s hermeneutic, Augustine writes,
I delighted to hear Ambrose often asserting in his sermons to the people, as a principle on which he must insist emphatically, The letter is [...]

According to Hegel, we abstract the notions of finitude and infinitude and tend to set these up as opposite notions.  However, according to Hegel, if you analyze the notion of absolute infinity, the infinite must include the finite or else it is itself finite.  A consequence of this reasoning results in Hegel’s claim that God [...]

Thomas Williams argues in his article, “A Most Methodical Lover?  On Scotus’ Arbitrary Creator,” that the affectio iustitiae implies a kind of imperfection or lack and thus cannot be applied to God.  According to Scotus, both humans and angels possess wills that have two affections or inclinations: (1) the affectio commodi and (2) the affectio [...]

The second half of the document under discussion (Women Bishops:  A Response to Cardinal Kasper) falls under the broad heading, “Women Bishops: Biblical Exegesis and Theological Anthropology,” and attempts to sketch the biblical basis for the Anglican  position on the ordination of women.  For a more detailed, yet (popular-level rather than academic)  presentation of some [...]

The following passages are excerpts from a document called Women Bishops:  A Response to Cardinal Kasper  (a background article written for the discussions at General Synod, York, July 2006) by Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham and David Stancliffe, Bishop of Salisbury.  I bring this to your attention as the result of the very fruitful discussion [...]

Wolters notes that Scotus (in his initial questions on book IX of the Metaphysics) clarifies a number of ambiguities with regard to act and potency.  As Wolter points out, concerning potency, Scotus makes the important distinction between “potency as principle and potency as a mode of being” (Wolter: 167).  Here Scotus takes principle as a [...]

A friend of mine recently directed me to the following article in First Things entitled, “What is Anglicanism?”  by Archbishop Orombi.  If any of you have read it–particularly those who are Anglican/Episcopalian, but others are also welcome to join in, so long as the discussion stays engaged with the article and is constructive, which doesn’t [...]

 
In writing an email to a friend, the following thought occurred to me that seems worthy of further engagement, viz., might there be a number of interesting parallels between the increasing attempt to logically arrange the major theological loci into a comprehensive systematic whole [e.g., the movement from Lombard's Sentences to St. Thomas' ST and [...]

A short essay of mine entitled “What makes music beautiful” has just been posted on The Church and Postmodern Culture Blog (hosted by Baker Academic and coordinated by Geoff Holsclaw and Jamie Smith).  If you are interested, please join the conversation.

Scotus understands the will as an active power in distinction from natures as active powers involving (natural) necessity.  According to Scotus, there are two properties of the will:  (1) spontaneity and (2) contingency.  With regard to (1), the idea is that the will as an active power is an interior source essential to the self that [...]

In the midst of all the theological in-house fighting these days, I often wonder where is love, where is Christ, where are those who are so consumed with the love of Christ that no matter what happens the love of Christ is evident.  In asking these questions, I see my own lack and my own [...]

In chapter 3, “Certainty as the Way to Nihilism,” of his book Proper Confidence, Newbigin discusses a number of dualisms that come to the fore in Modernity, and which can (at least on a traditional read) be trace to Descartes.  The first is the dualism between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The second and [...]

Reggie Kidd, professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary, blogs on the PCA’s need to discern our true enemies, unite with those who are within the camp, and allow for greater diversity within our tradition.   Click here to read the post in its entirety. 

Summarizing his findings with regard to art and human beings in the final chapter of his book, Redeeming Beauty:  Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics, Aidan Nichols says the following:
Art has been a feature of human society since prehistoric times. [...] Art discloses what we think our society is like, or what it is not like but [...]