The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Theology

  • Notes for a Doctrine of Creation

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    Fred Sanders
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    Just a few thoughts here, brief notes on how a doctrine of creation ought to be handled in systematic theology. I state them as theses, as if I am declaring how every theologian ought to handle the doctrine. But really I’m talking to myself in public. 1. Work backwards. The doctrine of creation occurs early…

  • The Economic Trinity Communicates the Immanent Trinity

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    Fred Sanders
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    When Kevin Vanhoozer intervenes in the recent discussion of the doctrine of God, he does so by making several strategic moves. But the move behind them all is his insistence that we’ve got to get the doctrine of the Trinity right. And “getting it right” means describing the relationship between the economic and immanent Trinity…

  • John Hick (1922-2012), Philosopher of Religion

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    Fred Sanders
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    John Hick, a major philosopher of religion, has died at age 90. Friends and students had just brought out a festschrift in his honor weeks before his death. Hick’s theological conclusions were decidedly on the liberal side of the spectrum, and his intellectual legacy will be the greatest among those who are least concerned about…

  • Sharing Our Solitude

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    Peter David Gross
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    A piece I wrote, “Sharing Our Solitude,” is one of January’s three main articles in The Examined Life.  The issue is all about ‘enduring through suffering,’ and, among others, it includes an article on interacting with suffering in a classroom setting, an apology for watching sad films, and an artistic and symbolic exploration of the color…

  • Stick Figure Theology: Annie Vallotton

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    Fred Sanders
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    Imagine being an artist commissioned to illustrate the entire Bible. From the epic stories to the pithy proverbs, from psalms of praise to prophets of doom, from the life of Jesus to his parables, you were supposed to produce pictures for everything. Now imagine that you were limited to the most minimal of visual means…

  • The Conversion of St. Paul

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    Robert Llizo
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    Christmas was exactly one month ago, and now, we celebrate another birth, or should I say , a new birth: the conversion of Saul of Tarsus, once fierce persecutor of the followers of Christ, now a formidable soldier for Christ. We can say with certainty that ignorance of St. Paul is ignorance of Christ, especially…

  • Not Your Old New Trinitarianism, A New New Trinitarianism

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    Fred Sanders
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    “Remythologizing” is a mouthful of a word, and it may scare people a few away from Kevin Vanhoozer’s fascinating book Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship (2010: Cambridge University Press). Vanhoozer explains in great detail what he means by it, and I won’t rehearse that here. But one of the reasons he picked the…

  • Close Attention to How God Says What He Says

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    Fred Sanders
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    Vanhoozer says “My wager is that this brief detour into the dispute over the meaning of Dostoevsky’s authorship will yield theological dividends for understanding God’s communicative relation to the world.” (p. 311) Indeed it does, in two ways. First, it sharpens the meaning of divine authorship in a way that clarifies the God-world relationship. “God…

  • Whatever God Makes Humans FLIRSH

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    Fred Sanders
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    Reading in modern liberal theology, you begin to notice some recurring themes. Especially when liberal theologians get around to describing God, they tend to emphasize a few characteristics. You find these pervasive patterns of thought: that God is deeply mysterious, but is always opposed to oppression; that God is intimately and immanently near to us,…

  • God who Writes Like Dostoevsky

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    Fred Sanders
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    English metaphysical poet Thomas Traherne (1636-1674) insisted that in spiritual matters, “the manner is always more excellent than the thing.” This has great implications for the idea of God as author. When Kevin Vanhoozer presents God’s relationship to the world as a relation of authorship, his point is never simply that God is an author.…

  • Communicative Theism

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    Fred Sanders
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    A short post here before plunging into the next major topic in Kevin Vanhoozer’s 2010 book Remythologizing Theology (coming out in paperback this year, they say). That next major topic is how God speaks. But first a word about how Vanhoozer speaks. Remythologizing Theology is a book about the doctrine of God, but it also…

  • John 3:16

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    Fred Sanders
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    It’s one of the most famous verses in the Bible, the hit single everybody knows even if they don’t listen to the rest of the album. You can wave it on a banner, paint it in your eyeblack, or print it underneath your In-N-Out cup; John 3:16. No matter how often I see it, no…