Recently I was discussing the issue of the atonement with a PCA friend of mine and it became apparent that our differences on this doctrine were based on much deeper differences in theology. We traced our subtle disagreement backwards but I will start here from the beginning: with Creation. Creation is not just the beginning […]
The Christian mind can hardly think of a more familiar set of concepts (Kingdom, Church, Communion) which is at the same time so difficult to communicate precisely. But the simpler idea, and the one we’re really aiming at, is ‘the people of God.’ Who are they? How do I become one of them? The term […]
If we are to have a right ecclesiology it must be boldly grounded in the Incarnation. 2nd Clement’s letter can help us to do just that. To begin with, the letter is not of Clementine authorship; moreover, it is not a letter but a homily and likely of second century origin; perhaps written in Corinth […]
In the earliest Christian communities, creeds were widely used among catechumens received into the Church to affirm that the initiate understood and affirmed the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The early creeds offer us some insight into the ecclesiology of the early Church. The earliest form of what we now call “The Apostles Creed” was […]
St. Augustine, God rest his soul, can’t be happy about how Western Christians have been fighting over the rights to his theological legacy for the last five hundred years. This in-fighting notwithstanding, a few issues make Augustine stand out as decidedly Catholic. Recently we discussed the issue of the canon, and Augustine clearly supports the […]
In this episode, Bryan Cross & Tim Troutman discuss the relationship between faith and reason and how to strike a balance between fideism and rationalism. CTC Podcast Episode 4 Faith and Reason To download the mp3, right click here.
Undoubtedly we must answer: she is enormous but her dogmas wield the precision of a razor. It would be fallacious to say that this sort of exactness in thought were a Western peculiarity or confined to Roman Christianity as if the largeness of truth could rid this point of its power. We might as well […]
I stumbled across this article in Time Magazine while waiting for my oil change. I guess it’s old news by now but I’m interested in your reaction to it (particularly if you’re a Calvinist).
Please comment on Sean Patrick’s “Sola Gratia” article here.
I’m prone to distrust doctrinal claims that would leave the majority of Christians throughout history as heretics. A strict Memorialism, the view that the Body & Blood are spoken of the Eucharistic species in a purely figurative way, does just that; for it makes Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans and Calvinists supremely wrong about the […]
