Essay / Theology
These two axioms are very short, and fairly straightforward: Polanus wants to clarify that while the persons are distinguished by relations, this does not introduce composition in any way: the persons are not composed by relations, nor is God composed by relations. Constitution good; composition
Essay / Best Books
by Danielle Hitchen A child’s moral imagination is most often formed first by the books their parents read to them. From the basic counting primers to the garish yet calm Goodnight Moon to the emotional complexities of Llama Llama Red Pajama, books are fundamental to
Essay / Theology
In these two axioms, Polanus teaches how to think about God in terms of essence and relation. One of the tricky parts of this is that essence and relation are two different ways of talking about the same thing in God, which is God. Several
Essay / Theology
In this little set of axioms, Polanus wants to show that the persons of the Trinity are distinguished by real, opposed relations. He is aware that this is a packed phrase, which contains and summarizes quite a few judgments. So he eases his way into
Essay / Theology
Here’s our next conversation about the Trinity, following Polanus’ 18 Axioms. The main thing Polanus wants to clarify in this axiom is that when we speak of difference in God, it can never be difference in essence; it is instead difference in person. In the
Essay / Best Books
While the Torrey Honors curriculum focuses on the Christian and Western great book traditions, there’s much goodness, truth, and beauty to be found beyond the Western tradition. Recently Torrey upperclassmen and faculty spent a semester reading and discussing great books from all around the globe—from
Essay / Best Books
John Keats’s Odes – Keats typifies the young romantic poet whose genius is tragically extinguished too soon. Before his death at the age of 25, he wrote to Fanny Brawne, the woman he loved, “I have left no immortal work behind me…but I have lov’d
Essay / Theology
Axiom 5 is very short, but Axiom 6 is very long. So even though this is organizationally strange, we’re devoting one discussion to Axiom 5 and the first half of Axiom 6. But in our next discussion, we’ll only cover the second half of 6,
Essay / Best Books
The Torrey Honors curriculum includes a number of the greatest Roman works such as Cicero’s On Duties, Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Plutarch’s Lives, Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, and Augustine’s Confessions and City of God. For those who would like to expand their knowledge even further, here
Essay / Theology
In his fourth axiom on the Trinity, Polanus clarifies how the persons of the Trinity are related to each other by clarifying how they are related to the divine nature. To make the point, he contrasts the right answer, homoousioi, with a number of wrong
Essay / Theology
Is the Son like the Father, or unlike the Father? More precisely, are the Father and the Son similar in essence, or dissimilar? It’s a trick question. “Similarity” is not a useful category for talking about God’s essence. In his third Axiom, Polanus helps us
Essay / Theology
If I could provide you with links to a nice translation of Amandus Polanus’ Axioms on the Trinity within his Syntagma Theologiae, I would. But I can’t. What Ryan Hurd and I are doing in this set of conversations is posting Ryan’s new translation of
