Given our recent discussions on the nature of the atonement and predestination, here’s an opportunity to apply this to something concrete at the popular level: a rap song

A recent post titled “Off-Duty Megachurches” on Christianity Today’s blog, led me to Joe Johnson’s Mega Churches gallery (at the gallery, click on “projects”, and then click on “Mega Churches”). The photos almost made me feel sick. (What I say below assumes that the reader has looked at the photos.)

I was recently in a discussion in which someone was claiming that the beatific vision was natural to unfallen man.1 He was at the same time advocating a complete separation of Church and State, and denying the notion that the State resulted from the Fall. Here I argue that those three claims are incompatible with […]

I just finished teaching Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics this semester. This is the tenth year I have taught it, and every time I teach it, I more deeply appreciate its truth and importance. One reason for its importance can be found in the Wilson-Hitchens video that I discuss below.

Yesterday Professor Lawrence Feingold gave an outstanding lecture on “St. Paul on Justification.” Listen to the lecture and the Q&A below: Lecture: Lecture Q&A: Q&A

What did Christ do for us through His Passion, according to Aquinas? Was it necessary that He suffer? How do we receive the salvific benefits of Christ’s Passion? Was His Passion sufficient? Does God hate sinners?

In this fifth post in this series, I examine what St. Thomas Aquinas says about the third of the three effects of sin, namely, debt of punishment. Why does sin cause a debt of punishment? Is the debt the same for mortal and venial sins? Is sin the punishment for sin? Does the debt remain […]

In this fourth post in our series on Aquinas and the Council of Trent, I examine what St. Thomas Aquinas says about another effect of sin, namely, stain in the soul. How does sin cause a stain in the soul? What is this stain? Is it caused by all sins or only mortal sins? Does […]

In this third post in this series, I examine what St. Thomas Aquinas says about the effects of sin, and in particular his discussion of the corruption of human nature by sin. Is human nature entirely corrupted by sin? If not, how can human nature be partly corrupted and partly uncorrupted by sin? What are […]

Before I talk about the fifth session of the Council of Trent, I will do two things. First, I will offer a brief summary of Aquinas’ teaching in his Summa Theologiae regarding the essence of original sin. Following that, I will give a short overview of what Aquinas says about the effects of sin. So […]