On What Counts as a Theory of the Atonement
Atonement is a central concept in Christian theology. Theories about the atonement--what it is, how it works--abound. Below is a long...
top of page
Search
- May 2, 2022
- 3 min
Cracking Your Head (On Reading Hard Books)
My first year of graduate school did not go well. At first I was simply thrilled to be able to study theology at Oxford University, but...
- Apr 28, 2022
- 6 min
Wine, Weddings, and Signs
I’ve recently found myself, in the transition from Lent to Easter, focusing on the miracle at the wedding in Cana. The story—including...
- Apr 20, 2021
- 10 min
St. Bonaventure on Real and Symbolic Presence
[Re-posting this since I had removed it a few months back in hopes of publishing it in a more widely- read venue. It's good! But not...
- Apr 12, 2021
- 4 min
AI Doppelgängers
I had a prophetic idea the other day which I haven't seen anywhere before. I write it here as a warning, but some people will think it's...
- Apr 1, 2021
- 6 min
Thick Being, Thin Being, and God
“Tu es verum esse; tu es totum esse” --Duns Scotus There is an old tradition which associates God with being or existence. Duns Scotus...
- Mar 23, 2021
- 9 min
Fortifying the Intellectual Life
I recently read Zena Hitz's book, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Princeton, 2020). I highly recommend it....
- Oct 6, 2020
- 3 min
C.S. Lewis on Nature and Reasoning about God
In the Introduction to The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis tells us the reasons he used to give when people would ask him why he was an...
- Oct 2, 2020
- 2 min
Something Must Exist
"Why is there something rather than nothing?" Here is one of the biggest of the Big Questions. But for the all deep philosophizing done...
- Aug 26, 2020
- 2 min
How Much Can I Love My Hat?
Sometimes I think that a saint is someone who is capable of loving a hat more than I currently love anything. You get to a strange...
- Jun 10, 2020
- 5 min
Joy, Discipline, and Sacrifice
Sometimes the good life demands sacrifice. It is written, Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends....
- Jun 1, 2020
- 4 min
Rightly Ordered Loves and Intensity of Feeling
What it means for a virtue to regulate an appetite has nothing to do with diminishing appetite as such. It has to do with ordering an...
- May 20, 2020
- 1 min
One Wine is Left in the Broken Bowl
What is left for the cold grey soul That moans like a wounded dove? One wine is left in the broken bowl 'Tis, to love, and love, and...
- May 20, 2020
- 1 min
What Forms Will Your Loves Call Forth?
Here is an audio file of some commentary I gave on Charles Williams' novel, The Place of the Lion. I originally recorded this for my...
- May 11, 2020
- 3 min
Conformity to the Real
Philosophy is an activity and all activities aim at the good. What good does Philosophy aim at? Knowledge, Wisdom, Understanding. These...
- Apr 28, 2020
- 11 min
The Two Gandalfs
The title of this essay is not quite as apt as the titles of my earlier essays on the two Aragorns, Faramirs, and Treebeards. This is...
- Apr 27, 2020
- 11 min
The Two Aragorns
Last week I posted essays on Treebeard and Faramir, two noble characters from the Lord of the Rings whom, I argued, Peter Jackson...
- Apr 27, 2020
- 5 min
Reading Religion in Lord of the Rings
The Ainulindalë is the name of the first part of Silmarillion. It is the creation story of Tolkien's Middle Earth, and demonstrates that...
- Apr 21, 2020
- 5 min
The Two Faramirs
In an earlier post I compared the character Treebeard as we meet him in The Lord of the Rings, with movie-Treebeard as we meet him in...
- Apr 20, 2020
- 4 min
The Two Treebeards
For those whose first love is Tolkien's original novel, some of the changes made in Peter Jackson's films are bound to be disappointing....
- Apr 9, 2020
- 3 min
Practicing Gratitude
By the practice of gratitude I mean a lot more than observing all rules of etiquette about when and how to express gratitude to another...
- Apr 7, 2020
- 4 min
Sheltering Courageously
The Scythians fight by flying. This is what Socrates tells us, anyway, in Plato’s Laches. He asks Laches himself what courage is, and...
- Apr 2, 2020
- 1 min
Love for God, Hope for Me
Duns Scotus tells us that the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love perfect us as "wayfarers" on our way to heaven. Faith...
- Nov 12, 2019
- 4 min
Labor and Money
My main conviction about money is that it is a way of expanding the effectiveness of labor. I mean that it ought to be seen this way. I...
My last post was in Summer 2022 and I don't expect to resume blogging anytime soon.
bottom of page