Today, January 28th, is the feast day of one of the Church’s greatest theologians, Thomas Aquinas (c.1224-1274). For his penetrating syntheses of faith and reason, nature and grace, and speculative, practical and spiritual theology, he is known as the doctor communis, the Common Doctor among the bright and God-consumed minds of the Catholic tradition.
We ain’t gonna lie. Many of us on Called to Communion were drawn to the Catholic Church after we had reassessed the “salvation issue” through the lens of the “New Perspective on Paul.” Three years ago, a few friends of mine (including Sean Patrick of Called to Communion) were lamenting that there wasn’t a book […]
Just kidding, the Catholics don’t have anything wrong about justification; I was just getting your attention. :-) Now to be serious. The primary way we both [Catholics and Protestants] talk about justification and about any of God’s operations is based on the way that the Scriptures speak of God. Let me say at the outset […]
“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!” – The Exsultet, Traditionally Sung at the Easter Vigil A simple answer of why God allowed the Fall of man runs like this. God did not desire man’s sin but He respected man’s free will by allowing him to […]
Life can be and often is a valley of tears. Who can deny the realities of tragedy and senselessness, stories of children being orphaned or abused. Stories of late night phone calls informing you of to come immediately to the hospital or a visit from the authorities informing you of the loss of a loved […]
When I was younger, I used to think that God actually could lie if He wanted to, but He simply chose not to because of His goodness. I didn’t realize, and I think many people still don’t, that He literally cannot lie. Some theological errors can be avoided by understanding that God cannot lie. For […]
As we move ever closer to the celebration of the coming of our Lord on Christmas, it is helpful for us to reflect a bit on what this coming means for you and me, what this means for us! What does the season of Advent have to do with the Ascension of our Lord Jesus […]
God is said to will a thing in one of two ways: absolutely or contingently. If God wills a thing absolutely, then it necessarily happens. So a thing which does not happen cannot be said to have been God’s absolute will. But we know per divine revelation that God wills some things to happen that […]
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 […]
