[Part I can be accessed here]. 
For Zwingli, because Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, he therefore cannot be real-ly present in the Eucharist.  Zwingli’s starting point, in contrast with Thomas’s (and we all have starting points) is that “the presence of a thing in a sign excludes its being present [...]

Reardon’s book, Christ in the Psalms is one of those books that I find myself picking up again and again, each time finding something new and worthy of my contemplation.  Commenting on Psalm 7, Reardon begins by drawing our attention to the way in which the Psalms are, like many other great literary works, distinctively [...]

In chapter three of Denys Turner’s book, Faith, Reason, and the Existence of God, he has a short, yet dense section devoted to explicating St. Thomas’ Eucharistic theology of presence and absence vis-à-vis Zwingli’s teaching on the Eucharist.  As Turner explains, Roman Catholic theology distinguishes “between the material reality of the signifier and the formal [...]

Having recently read a section devoted to St. Bonaventure from Denys Turner’s book, Faith, Reason and the Existence of God,[1] I was struck by what seem to me rather conspicuous similarities between St. Bonaventure and Calvin with regard to their understanding of the “Book of Nature.”  If any of you are aware of scholars who have [...]

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.  When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss [...]

Now that I am finally finished with my essays and exams for this semester, I wanted to re-visit a post from October and address a comment that I simply did not have time to engage during the semester.  The original post can be found here, and the comment was given by Janet who points to [...]

“Plurima enim sunt Attributa Divina, ad quae explicanda, nisi quod a Philosophia nobis porrigitur, acceptum adferatur, non modo non explicari, sed ne intelligi quidem, nostro quidem iudicio, satis recte possint.  Neque statim ex Christi Schola egredimur, cum Lycaeum ingredimur:  aut scientas confundimus, quando ad scripturam explicationem artes adhibemus.”
“For there are very many divine attributes that [...]

At the end of Hegel’s Philosophy of Spirit, he engages, albeit rather briefly, the three major moments of Absolute Spirit, viz., (1) Art, (2) Religion, (3) Philosophy.  The problem with both Subjective (being inward) and Objective (being outward) Spirit is that both are ultimately one-sided and finite.  Absolute Spirit must overcome this one-sidedness and unite [...]

J.I. Packer recently presented his thoughts on Anglican realignment vs. schism, as well as thoughts on a number of other important topics in the current Anglican/Episcopal world.  Thoughts? 

After a semester of immersion in Hegel-The Philosophy of Logic, The Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit-I find the following exceedingly refreshing, not to mention on the mark. 
“Hegel’s own understanding of Christianity was significantly different from traditional orthodoxy.  For example, Hegel seems to rule out the possibility of miracles.  His understanding of Jesus [...]

Summary and Concluding Remarks
As a kind of summary of the important aspects that we have encountered in Scotus’ account of the will thus far, I offer the following.  First, Scotus claims that there are only two kinds of active powers:  natures or wills.  At the heart of his distinction is the self-determination of the will, [...]

Superabundant Sufficiency
If we grant what Scotus says thus far, the question still arises as to how an indeterminate active potency is reduced from potency to act.  To this question, Scotus offers one of his most interesting and innovative contributions, namely, his idea of superabundant sufficiency.  First, Scotus distinguishes between two kinds of indeterminacy: (1) a [...]

Scotus’ Solution:  The Irreducible Distinction Between Nature and Will
As promised, we now turn to Scotus’ solution wherein we find his explication of the distinction between nature and will and his idea of superabundant sufficiency.  Scotus begins by stating that the distinction between nature and will is not determined by the objects correlated with these powers, [...]