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Yet whenever we take things in this way we do not yet have a proper understanding of what is happening in this concern for absolute certainty in metaphysics. What is ultimate must also be capable of being known in the ultimate sense. Yet what is the status of the concerns of metaphysics for an...

To transpose Scripture, one element in the canonical tradition of the Church, which was to be used with other canonical materials and practices, into the single norm of theological truth, which was to be used on its own as the foundation for argument, was to reconceive the whole scope and...

The Patristic view was that God became human so that finite, human life and death could be assumed into the divine, eternal life. I do not understand your division into dynamic and static: we are talking of the Living God who is eternal. Why can't it be both completely consistent in His eternal...

Personally, I like Rene Fleming singing Schubert's Ave Maria: Renée Fleming - Ave Maria (Schubert) - YouTube for Opera, I am a fan, mostly focusing on Janacek, Mozart, Puccini and Verdi.

Have you ever read The Dark Night of the Soul by St John of the Cross? What you are talking about seems to me to be just that, but I do not know you, just what I have experienced when that feeling has overtaken me.

The reason for it is the words of Christ on the cross you quoted to open the thread, particularly: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" As I said, it is one of the more difficult verses in all of Christian faith to accept, and has been known to be so from the beginning of the faith...

Understandable, but entirely backwards in the modern era that refuses to teach ancient thought and classical languages anymore. In fact, the concept of "person" comes directly from the Trinitarian debates. The Greek word hypostasis was translated into Latin as persona ala Tertullian. The Greek...

It is arguably the most difficult passage in all of the Christian faith, but is crucial to it. We cannot suppress the thought: “If you are the Son of God, should you be saying this? If you are God, if you are the second person of the Trinity, how can you be abandoned” Our temptation is to try...

:confused: It means exactly what it says. They were aware of the issues of Greek theology and framed their argument in terms and concepts opposed to Greek theology in full awareness. Sorry, but it reads better in the original and makes perfect sense.

The justification of the incarnation as an act worthy of God is a common theme of Christian apologetic against philosophically minded pagans, whose understanding of God did not allow for the possibility that God could empty himself, assume the human condition, and suffer the consequences. The...

The subjects under discussion between 318 and 381 were not, as has sometimes been alleged, those raised by Greek theology or philosophy and such as could only have been raised by a people thinking in Greek terms. It was not simply a quarrel about Greek ideas. In the fourth century there came to...

Such studious responses! Like most people, I tend to skim 1 Chronicles a little at the start. I don't see much point in reading it cover to cover more than once, although sections need to be read in order (Pentateuch, Major and Minor Prophets etc) but there's no real need to read Proverbs or...

Re 1 Timothy 3:16. Which Trinitarian scholars have a problem with this verse? I understand that the addition of theos was later, as acknowledged by Knight before the passage cited below, but no NT scholar I am aware of thinks this an argument against the Trinity...

Simple cause and effect: existence is the effect, God is the cause, so God cannot be said to exist in the manner of created being (being their Creator). Being is everywhere, even if the mode of being is different for rocks and rainbows, quarks and tides, songs or Scriptures; yet the cause of...

The New Testament was written in Greek for a Greek-speaking audience using Greek concepts. The Greeks are the very definition of Western culture and thought, and Christianity only makes real sense in that context. For the New Testament, the big jump came when Jesus was identified as the...

The divine persons are not added to one another, they exist in one another: the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father, the Spirit is united to the Father together with the Son and ‘completes the blessed trinity’ if he were ensuring the circulation of love within it. This circulation...

Which is why belief is of such little concern in theology. Believing things about an infinitely unknowable mystery is bound to lead to error, hubris and human sin. 1. The Good that is beyond being and beyond the unoriginated is one, the holy unity of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit...

Beware of Gnosticism when considering theosophy and Gematria. The image of 12 disciples with the Godman at their centre echoes the 12 constellations which revolve in the heavens around the pole star. . . The Acts of John describes an initiation ceremony in which Jesus’ 12 disciples...

Maybe you feel like it is a simple yes-no. I think I've answered the question a number of times now more fully than a simplistic reply could. They had the knowledge, experience and perspective of Eden, then succumbed to the Temptation to know Good and Evil so as to become like gods.

I mean they did not have the subjectivist/Sophist/Humanist perspective of determining good and evil for themselves. I think I am saying the obvious - it is in no way evasion. They lived and witnessed the Good that God created until the Temptation - then they turned from God to determine good and...