Karl Barth and the Limits of Angelology (December 28, 2021)

What truth may we speak about angels? It is a daunting theological locus. Of angels, Karl Barth says “How are we to steer a way between this Scylla and Charybdis, between the far too interesting mythology of the ancients and the far too uninteresting ‘demythologization’ of most of the moderns?” […]

Related: Adolf Schlatter, ambassadors of god, angel, angelology, angels, Bretschneider, CD III/3, Demons, Dorner, J. W. Baier, Karl Barth, Limits of Angelology, Martensen, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Reinhard, Rothe, St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas, Thomist, Troeltsch

Errors of Inerrancy #9: Inerrancy turns the Bible into a Paper Pope. (April 17, 2017)

[The Errors of Inerrancy: A ten-part series on why Biblical Inerrancy censors the Scriptures and divides Evangelicals.] The Errors of Inerrancy #9: Inerrancy turns the Bible into a Paper Pope. Biblical Inerrancy not only causes misunderstanding of the Bible, it also causes misuse of the Bible. When Biblical Inerrancy abolishes the distinction between […]

Related: CD I/2, Church Dogmatics, Church Dogmatics I/2, Dictatorship of Exegetes, John Calvin, Jürgen Moltmann, Karl Barth, Paper Pope, Table Talk, The Errors of Inerrancy, Thomas Aquinas

How Jürgen Moltmann Reads and Interprets the Bible (January 31, 2017)

How do we know that we understand the Bible when we read it? The word "hermeneutics" refers to the way we read and interpret the Bible, and if our hermeneutical approach is wrong, then we will not understand the Bible. Often disagreements in theology come down to people reading the […]

Related: Church Dogmatics, hermeneutics, Jürgen Moltmann, Karl Barth, Martin Luther, material criticism, matter of Scripture, Sachkritik, Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas

The Structure of Theological Revolutions (December 12, 2016)

Theology develops over time—it seems obvious to me, but I have friends who disagree. Every theological doctrine has a history, beginning with the first person to think it and describe it, and then it is refined over centuries by many others. Hans Küng keenly compares the development of theology to the development […]

Related: Augustine, Copernicus, Einstein, Hans Küng, Models, Newton, science, Theological Revolutions, theology, Theology for the Third Millennium, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Kuhn

Jürgen Moltmann on Unfinished Summas and Natural Theology (July 15, 2014)

Unfinished Barcelona Cathedral (Sagrada) Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics is 8,000 pages and unfinished. Thomas Aquinas' great theological system, The Summa Theologica, is unfinished too. All the medieval summas are unfinished in the same way as the medieval summas are unfinished. The post-magesterial reformers of the 16th and 17th century also produced […]

Related: CD IV/3, Church Dogmatics, Church Dogmatics IV/3, Emil Brunner, Jürgen Moltmann, Karl Barth, Natural Theology, Summa Theologica, systematic theology, Thomas Aquinas, Tony Jones, Universalism

Philip Melanchthon against Thomas Aquinas: Do the sacraments benefits others besides the recipients? (March 30, 2012)

In Melanchthon's Loci, he says that the belief that the Mass benefits others besides the recipient originated in Thomas' Summa, here's the quotation from Loci:  "All Masses are godless, therefore, except those by which consciences are encouraged for the strengthening of faith. A sacrifice is what we offer to God, but we do […]

Related: Benefits, Didache, Eucharist, John Calvin, Loci Communes, lord's supper, Philip Melanchthon, Sacrifice, Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas