Monthly Archives: May 2018

Free Will Theodicies of Hell

by Thomas Talbott, Ph.D. Every free will theodicy of hell (and, for that matter, every free will defense of it as well) rests upon an incompatibilist (or so-called libertarian) understanding of human freedom. C. S. Lewis, one of the earliest … Continue reading

Posted in Eschatology, Philosophical Theology, Thomas Talbott | 30 Comments

Dionysian Ponderings: Transcendence and the Plotinian One

I come to my reading of the Corpus Areopagaticum with a specific understanding of divine transcendence, an understanding which I will be testing along the way. We might put it this way: God infinitely surpasses all creaturely distinctions and dualities—transcendence … Continue reading

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How to Read the Bible from a Universalist Perspective

by Thomas Talbott, Ph.D. Introduction I begin with a confession. For I must confess here at the outset that I am now utterly confident in the exegetical case for a universalist reading of the Bible as a whole, and I … Continue reading

Posted in Bible, Eschatology, Thomas Talbott | 28 Comments

Dionysian Ponderings

At some point during the past five years, I realized that I had no choice but to read The Divine Names by St Dionysius the Areopagite. I have been captivated by the Christian doctrine of the creatio ex nihilo and have sought … Continue reading

Posted in Dionysius the Areopagite | 21 Comments

The Kneeling Prayers of Pentecost

Deacon: Again and again, on bended knees, let us pray to the Lord. Choir: Lord, have mercy. (3x) Priest: O Lord, Who art immaculate, spotless, without beginning, invisible, incomprehensible, inscrutable, unchanging, unsurpassable, immeasurable, forbearing, Who alone hast immortality, Who dwellest … Continue reading

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“Having been shown, even in His human form, to share the Father’s glory, Christ now sent forth the Spirit Who comes from the Father and is sent by Him from heaven”

1. A Short while ago, with the strong eyes of faith, we beheld Christ ascending, no less clearly than those accounted worthy to be eye-witnesses, nor are we less favoured than they. “Blessed are they that have not seen, and … Continue reading

Posted in Citations | Comments Off on “Having been shown, even in His human form, to share the Father’s glory, Christ now sent forth the Spirit Who comes from the Father and is sent by Him from heaven”

“Our being is to be in relation to ultimacy, even when we deny ultimacy”

“The urgency of ultimacy”: elsewhere I have spoken of religion as marked by this. Different possibilities are suggested, none devoid of ambiguity, and as I will shortly indicate I would now modify this language. We can name the ultimate in … Continue reading

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“The scholastic philosophers often argued like forensic lawyers, but beneath the surface of disputatious univocity, there is more at work”

Kant’s critique of the traditional proofs [for the existence of God] has been taken as definitive, but is this so? Not quite. As formulated in the ethos of modernity, it conceives of nature in terms of Newtonian mechanism, where at … Continue reading

Posted in Philosophical Theology | 7 Comments