tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post8665743209334536098..comments2024-03-28T03:20:15.940-07:00Comments on Edward Feser: Canine theologyEdward Feserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13643921537838616224noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-12854009688914569042018-09-30T01:33:23.869-07:002018-09-30T01:33:23.869-07:00Professor Feser, why does the eastern orthodoxy re...Professor Feser, why does the eastern orthodoxy reject „filioque”? And why is it a doctrinal mistake on its part?Ovidiu Badeahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14684037338848488092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2207840317205651102018-05-30T15:48:15.889-07:002018-05-30T15:48:15.889-07:00Pursuant to posts elsewhere on this site (beginnin...Pursuant to posts elsewhere on this site (beginning <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/02/trinity-and-mystery.html?showComment=1521522113116#c950702309442951788" rel="nofollow">HERE</a>), this relational reciprocity doesn't appear to work under the doctrine of divine simplicity.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-71817631539662611642018-05-26T11:59:29.459-07:002018-05-26T11:59:29.459-07:00I think you're side-stepping Feser's argum...I think you're side-stepping Feser's argument and cite Aquinas as if he's infallible.<br /><br />That said, Aquinas is merely saying that such a person doesn't know God. I may think that Charlie Chaplin was a bumbling idiot and may refer to him as such, but the fact that he was otherwise does not entail that I am not referring to the actual Charlie Chaplin.<br /><br />Let's say that I somehow think that Charlie Chaplin was really a Martian and not human at all. If I say, "The Martian, Charlie Chaplin, was splendid in <i>The Great Dictator</i>," everybody would still know who I am referring to. I am most certainly talking about the real Charlie Chaplin even though I'm completely off-base about who he was.Billhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08001130202947985336noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-66175995015475298862016-02-15T08:46:46.280-08:002016-02-15T08:46:46.280-08:00This brought a smile to my face, as an Eastern Ort...This brought a smile to my face, as an Eastern Orthodox, though I will say tails are generally and most often used to show excitement and joy, and we're a rather austere sort, so find no need of them. Clear Watershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01067495451323861530noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-4070170066055475492016-01-11T04:13:54.618-08:002016-01-11T04:13:54.618-08:00Part 2 of 2:
In the Triune God we find all such p...<br />Part 2 of 2:<br /><br />In the Triune God we find all such processions not by local motion nor by transitive action but by the intellectual emanation of all that sums to the intelligible word from Him who enunciates His continuous Speech. Procession in Trinity finds the Spirit of – the actuality of – Truth which proceeds – the begotten logos – by which all things were made – which proceeds from all eternity – ever with God – ever in God – ever God – ever the communique of <i>transposition</i>. Trinity reveals the very wellspring of reality itself wherein that which does not produce its own being instead by continuous incantation <i>communicates</i> all that is <i>Himself</i> as the very identity of <i>communicate</i> transcends efficient and final causality. Such ushers us to the realization that the begotten logos is not more perfect than the begetter as begetting is not causing. That which is caused does not exist before in Act, whereas that which is communicated exists before in Act. Analogous to C.S. Lewis’ <i>Cube</i> abstraction so too the first angle of the triangle communicates its surface, already existing in act, to the other two angles…….. Thus there cannot be two Fathers or two Sons in the Trinity just as in an equilateral triangle the first angle constructed renders the area of the triangle incommunicable inasmuch as it belongs to that first angle; nevertheless this same area remains communicable and is communicated to the other two angles. Reality’s shape here reveals that in the Divine Procession there is no diversity of nature (the nature remains numerically the same) but only a diversity of persons <i>according to the collocation of relation</i> as transposition there in all that sums to Logos carries all that is God Himself as begetting in God casually transcends contingency’s change from non-being to being. <br /><br /> <br /><i>Person</i> here renders a finite nature such as Man incommunicable of itself which, since it is finite, is filled by the one personality. On the other hand the relative (relational) personality according to the collocation of relation finds, for example, that the person of the Father does not render an infinite nature incommunicable to other persons. The divine nature being infinite and infinitely prolific is not adequately filled by one relative, relational, personality – or let the critic here prove the contrary. Personality in God differs from human personality inasmuch as it is not something absolute but something relative – relational – and it is of the nature of relative things that they have a correlative. The Father cannot be without Logos in whom He communicates His Nature – which is Himself – which cannot be otherwise – as we find in the immutable love of the Necessary Being the milieu of Trinity wherein love’s ceaseless reciprocity comes into focus and carries us onward, inward, into the depths of reality’s Eternally Sacrificing Self Who in relative – relational – love ever embraces reality’s Eternally Filling Other. We here resist the urge to pull back for all which sums to “Self” and all which sums to “Other” and all that sums to Genesis’ peculiar yet fateful and Singular “Us” just is the revelation of the infinite God Who is Himself that which defines, circumscribes, demarcates all that sums to love. That <i>Person</i> is to us that which cannot transpose all that is the Self short of contingency need not bother us. As a Line is to a Cube so too are we to Him Who in Logos begets all that is Himself in His continuous Speech there in Trinity’s unavoidable topography of <i>Self-Other-Us</i>. Here we expect precisely <i>that</i> and no <i>less</i> both of ourselves and of Necessity Himself even as the enigmatic contours of all moral vectors emerge within the Necessary. The fundamental shape of reality unalterably reveals the inimitable contours of the Triune God – from A to Z – in the express meta-narrative of an uncanny sonnet borne within the ceaseless reciprocity of the immutable love of the Necessary Being.scbrownlhrmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-68626488822263879322016-01-11T04:11:32.702-08:002016-01-11T04:11:32.702-08:00Part 1 of 2:
A few random thoughts......
Trinit...<br />Part 1 of 2:<br /><br />A few random thoughts......<br /><br /><br />Trinity and Non-Stasis.... or Trinity and Motion: <br /><br /><br />A clipped assembling of related and nascent contemplations blended with selective paraphrases and manipulations of Garrigou-Lagrange’s “<i>The Trinity and God the Creator</i>” – a book which is neither recommend here nor the reverse here – mingled with embryonic ruminations, random pontifications, and underdeveloped reflections on the silhouettes of metaphysics, necessity, and the Triune God:<br /><br /><br />That which sums to the Necessary realizes satisfaction in Trinity – that is to say – the means and ends of <i>Act</i> void of <i>Cause</i> and of the Perfect Good’s diffusiveness void of <i>Contingency</i> surface as the fundamental shape of reality. The Necessary carries us to the Triune in all that we spy, whether such be the contours of <i>being</i> or of <i>life</i> or of <i>act</i> or of <i>intention</i> or of some other contour of <i>being</i>. That which causes the universe from <i>without</i> rather than from <i>within</i> appears before us void of contingency’s potentiality in need of this or that actualization and begins to come into focus. Trinity reveals to us the very contours of, not causation, but of <i>transposition</i> within and by all that sums to Mind’s lucidity even as we encounter that which sums to the essence of relational collocation in all that sums to the very delineation of <i>Person</i> as love’s filiation void of causation establishes its incantation of ceaseless reciprocity. <br /><br /> <br />Perfect Goodness is essentially diffusive of itself and in the Necessary Being we find the means and ends of Perfect Goodness such that God is essentially and to the greatest degree diffusive of Himself. Indeed, Thomas notes, "….the goodness of God is perfect and is able to be without other beings since nothing of perfection accrues to it from other beings." Here Leibnitz erred by saying that creation is not physically but morally necessary, and that God would not be perfectly wise and good if He had not created and moreover if He had not created the best of all possible worlds and indeed Malebranche erred in this seam toward Occasionalism. This obscurity is clarified by the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity, for, even if God had created nothing, there is still in Him the infinite prolificacy of Logos amid the ceaseless filiation of that which sums to Spirit eternally in transposition’s procession. <br /><br /><br />Thomas notes, "The knowledge of the divine persons was necessary for right thinking about the creation of things. For when we say that God made all things by His Word we avoid the error of those who say that God made all things necessarily because of His nature. But when we discover in God the procession of love we see that God produced creatures not because of any need, nor because of any extrinsic cause, but because of the love of His goodness….. “ Indeed as Scheeben points out the revelation of the Trinity perfects and confirms our natural knowledge of God the Creator and of creation as an entirely free act of God.<br /><br /> <br />The principle that good is diffusive of itself is perfectly verified in Trinity and in fact the highest Good is necessarily diffusive of itself within itself and this not by causality but by communication – such sums not only to a participation in its entire nature but a also to a communication of His entire nature, of His entire intimate life in the generation of that which sums uncaused to the begotten. From such a higher plane comes confirmation that creation is an entirely free act by which God communicates – transposes – Himself a participation of His being, His life, and His knowledge. Thus also it is more evident that God is not the intrinsic cause but the extrinsic cause of the universe, the end for which it was created, the being that created, conserves, and keeps it in motion. If, therefore, God created actually, it was through love, to show in an entirely free act His goodness, and not in any way by a necessity of His nature. <br /><br /><br /><i>Continued......</i>scbrownlhrmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-37247867296520493552016-01-08T07:34:41.433-08:002016-01-08T07:34:41.433-08:00Dear Anon (1/7 at 22:52):
Historically, some East...Dear Anon (1/7 at 22:52):<br /><br />Historically, some Eastern Orthodox theologians had a soft spot for STA, and even venerated him privately.<br /><br />One of the main reasons many liked him is that he arguably referenced Eastern Church Fathers even more than Western ones when writing theology. I argue that, when it comes to Theology, St. Thomas is a great synthesizer of Eastern and Western thought, which he expresses in Aristotlean Language. The definition of Transubstantiation, for example, is simply one of the most basic Traditions of Christ expressed in Aristotlean Language.<br /><br />But the professional Thomists might disagree with me :-)<br /><br />Anyway, I think St. Thomas might be a key in improving the relationship between the East and West.Daniel D. D.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-27330670337022861062016-01-07T22:52:23.998-08:002016-01-07T22:52:23.998-08:00Well,again,thank you very much for your responses....Well,again,thank you very much for your responses.I have just 2 more questions(they are completely unrelated):1.For me it's obvious that metaphysical naturalism (not the methodological one) has completely absurd implications.It's self-evident that there must be a first cause.But there are many people who are not naturalists,but still atheists.They adhere to some very strange ideas like panpsychysm or whatever...there are even people who think that matter can change by itself.For example let's say that a quark(or a super-string) has the potential to move and it actualises its own potential,like human beings do.Well,of course this is completely unscientific and it conflicts with absolutely everything that we exprience,but...my question is:Can thomism resist these kind of objections?2.Do Eastern Orthodox theologians embrace thomism?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-25229749835565548912016-01-07T19:03:03.751-08:002016-01-07T19:03:03.751-08:00
Christ certainly sums to far more revelation than...<br />Christ certainly sums to far more revelation than Moses. And far more than Romans 1. There is such a thing as *error* of course, but, merely the presence of gradations is not sufficient (by itself) to substantiate it (error).scbrownlhrmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-24728153727671879472016-01-07T18:03:47.198-08:002016-01-07T18:03:47.198-08:00Perhaps what part we perceive of the elephant and ...Perhaps what part we perceive of the elephant and its function would be a closer analogy...some conceptions of God being more complete than others, lesser ones not being wrong, as such, but not the fullness.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-26110833036863322742016-01-07T09:33:50.419-08:002016-01-07T09:33:50.419-08:00Thanks for your responses!Thanks for your responses!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-36351652208619747332016-01-07T09:25:29.238-08:002016-01-07T09:25:29.238-08:00"[T]he reason why generation can seem like a ..."[T]he reason why generation can seem like a bad analogy is that generation itself involves an essential series; it's just that in the grandfather-father-son-grandson cases we have different essential series at each generation."<br /><br />Aha, yes. That's an excellent point; what we actually have is an accidental series of essential series…es.<br /><br />Along those lines, Anon, it's therefore not safe to assume or infer that the father just couldn't <i>exist at all</i> without the grandfather; we'd be begging the question if we assumed that God couldn't just bring the father into being at any given moment. In fact one of the key points of the argument in question is precisely that the grandfather doesn't account for the <i>ongoing</i> existence of the father in this way; he's a cause <i>in fieri</i> ("in becoming") but not a cause <i>in esse</i> ("in being"). The <i>previous</i> existence of the grandfather (at the time of the father's conception) doesn't account for the father's <i>present</i> causal powers, and that's why the "essentialness" of the overall series snaps apart at that point.<br /><br />That's also another part of the answer to your question about why "a thing that is a mixture of potency and act must be held in existence at every instant moment." In particular, for Aquinas (following Avicenna), existence is itself an act, of which essence or nature is a potency, and anything whose existence is different from its essence is therefore a mixture of act and potency. And the reason <i>that</i> sort of mixture can't account for its own moment-by-moment existence is precisely that existence isn't part of its essence.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-13023849490211710252016-01-07T08:06:09.982-08:002016-01-07T08:06:09.982-08:00I should say, since Scott beat me to the answer, t...I should say, since Scott beat me to the answer, that I think his response is entirely right; my point was that the reason why generation can seem like a bad analogy is that generation itself involves an essential series; it's just that in the grandfather-father-son-grandson cases we have different essential series at each generation.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18226849770165614022016-01-07T08:00:47.072-08:002016-01-07T08:00:47.072-08:00The analogy with a father and a son is not proper ...<i>The analogy with a father and a son is not proper I think.I mean...if there's no great-great-great-great-.....grandpa,there's no father and there's no son and so on...So this seems not to be a proper analogy.</i><br /><br />I think this is right, as far as it goes; generation, considered entirely on its own, is an essential series, not an accidental one. When people use the father & son analogy, however, I think they are generally talking about the way in which other causal factors enter into the mix -- the father's generation of the son does not, on its own and of itself, cause the son's generation of the grandson. That requires more than a bit of independent input from the son! The son's generation of the grandson is not in any sense a part of the same action as the father's generation of the son. Rather, we have one essential series, the father generating the son, in an accidental series with the essential series of the grandfather generating the father, the son generating the grandson, etc.<br /><br />In general, I think this pattern will be common: accidental series can be seen as series of distinct essential series, i.e., where the essential series cannot be reduced to a single essential series.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-88170764715197710982016-01-07T07:57:28.428-08:002016-01-07T07:57:28.428-08:00Also worth noting:
The order of the argument is n...Also worth noting:<br /><br />The order of the argument is not that a <i>per se</i> series can't be infinite and therefore must have a first member. It's that a <i>per se</i> series must have a first member and therefore can't be infinite (at least if the first member is a member of the series in the strict sense; if the "first member" stands outside the series altogether, as God does, then the series itself can be infinite, do loop-the-loops, or whatever).Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-253546811890400252016-01-07T07:51:48.412-08:002016-01-07T07:51:48.412-08:00"It seems to me that every causal chain in ou..."It seems to me that every causal chain in our Universe is a per se causal chain.Am I missing something?"<br /><br />Yes. What makes a causal series a <i>per se</i> series is that the relevant causal power is transmitted from each member to the next, whereas in the father-son series the son has his own causal power to procreate and doesn't merely transmit the father's.<br /><br />In fact that's exactly why a <i>per se</i> series has to have a first member: because without one, there's no source for the causal power that each member is passing along. The case is different with the father-son series; since each member is exercising its own causal power and not merely passing along something it's receiving from the previous member, it's at least not just obvious (and Aquinas thought it wasn't demonstrable at all) that the series can't just extend infinitely backward.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-18088626742160820462016-01-07T07:27:32.865-08:002016-01-07T07:27:32.865-08:00@Brandon-thanks for your reply,man.I think I made ...@Brandon-thanks for your reply,man.I think I made up my mind now.So eveything that has potency is contingent because we can talk about potency only if we talk about something that actualises that potency,because there's no such thing as eternaly unactualisable potency.That's not a real potency.Only Actus Purus is not contingent because it has no potency.And another question:do absolute accidental causal series exist in our Universe?The analogy with a father and a son is not proper I think.I mean...if there's no great-great-great-great-.....grandpa,there's no father and there's no son and so on...So this seems not to be a proper analogy.Remove the first and nothing happens.How can it be said that every member of the serie has independent causal power since they would not exist if there wouldn't have been a previous member?This also cannot go to infinity.What must happen for the son to be born?Well,there must be a father.Well,but the father must also be born.So there must be a father of that father..ETC ad infinitum.Will the son ever be born?I think no.It seems to me that every causal chain in our Universe is a per se causal chain.Am I missing something?And I hope you are not bothered by my questions.I'm illiterate in this field of philosophy and I just want to make up my mind:)).Thanks in advance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-22361564860180498652016-01-07T06:52:56.792-08:002016-01-07T06:52:56.792-08:00Why do you assert that a thing that is a mixture o...<i>Why do you assert that a thing that is a mixture of potency and act must be held in existence at every instant moment?What if it exists by necessity?</i><br /><br />We would need to be more precise about what is meant by necessity; for some things we call necessity, necessary things can have their necessity caused (made actual) by other necessary things, so its being necessary would not change anything at all.<br /><br />On the other hand, something with composition of potency and act is by definition capable of not being actual; if it weren't able not to be actual, it would not have potency. So if by 'necessary' you mean 'can only be actual', this is inconsistent with saying that it has composition of potency and act.<br /><br />Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-2311894449244072272016-01-07T06:10:57.116-08:002016-01-07T06:10:57.116-08:00Ok,I know this would be completely off-topic,but t...Ok,I know this would be completely off-topic,but the topics devoided to prooving Aquinas are very old and...I'll put my question here:Why do you assert that a thing that is a mixture of potency and act must be held in existence at every instant moment?What if it exists by necessity?I understand why God must be Pure Act...well because an eternally unactualisable potency is not an actual potency after all...and so if God is unactualisable it cannot have real potencies.This is not the problem.But what if that at the fundamental level of physical reality there is something that is a mixture of potency and act and that still exists by necessity?What if this reality exists alongside God?I was given the response that well...a thing cannot create potencies in itself and by itself and so whatever is a mixture of potency and act is somehow contingent...but what if the potencies are already there,existing alongside its actuality by necessity,"waiting"(metaphorically speaking) to be actualised by God?Can it be proven that they must be held in existence at every instant moment by God?If so,can you give me an analogy and a proper answer?Thanks in advance and sorry for my English:)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-21185776509977689872016-01-07T03:03:35.600-08:002016-01-07T03:03:35.600-08:00For the Muslim:
On the metaphysical corridors of ...<br /><b>For the Muslim:</b><br /><br />On the metaphysical corridors of the immutable love of the Necessary Being, it is important to reiterate, first, that God directly reveals Himself to the Jew and to the Muslim (<b>by Scripture’s standards</b>) and they each respond properly with, “<i>Thou are the One True God!</i>”, as discussed in the previous comment dealing with “<b>God directly reveals Himself to the Muslim, referents successfully go through, Bill Vallicella’s case fails</b>”. Just as the Jew’s worship and content enters into error as it diverges from the contours of immutable love and yet successfully referents the One True God, so too does the Muslim diverge. Though each succeeds in referencing the One True God, each is still found not <i>knowing</i> (in the full sense of that word) the One True God for in and by Christ love’s eternal sacrifice of the Self obtains and such sums to the full instantiation of the <i>Imago Dei</i>. Those other vectors are, while undeniably referring to the One True God, simply a less complete pouring of His instantiation into time and physicality, into <i>The Adamic</i>, a less complete revelation of His Face and (<b>therefore</b>) wherever those less complete sightlines diverge from the many contours of immutable love, from Christ and the New Testament’s unique paradigmatic claims upon reality, said divergence sums to error. As for the paradigmatic explanatory terminus of the immutable love of the Necessary Being, the other thread on this topic, <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-and-reference-of-god.html" rel="nofollow">Christians, Muslims, and the Reference of God</a>, has two comments time-stamped “<i>January 6, 2016 at 3:09 AM</i>” and “<i>January 6, 2016 at 3:57 AM</i>” which (very, very) briefly touch on (simply to introduce the conceptual necessities of <i>Being</i> and of <i>love</i>) the unavoidably triune topography of <i>Being’s</i> there vertices as such sums to love’s metaphysical landscape. Also, <i>Stand To Reason</i> has a blog post <a href="http://str.typepad.com/weblog/2016/01/the-deity-of-christ-and-the-reality-of-the-trinity.html" rel="nofollow">with similar content on the triune nature of God and therefore of love</a> should one be inclined to look further.scbrownlhrmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-61224774587754504222016-01-07T02:07:05.606-08:002016-01-07T02:07:05.606-08:00Feser’s other (initial) blog post on this topic is...<br />Feser’s other (initial) blog post on this topic is <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/12/christians-muslims-and-reference-of-god.html" rel="nofollow">Christians, Muslims, and the Reference of God</a> and in the comment section (comment #’s 447, 448, 449, 450) four comments which will not be copied here (to avoid repetition of content etc.) were placed. <br /><br />They are titled:<br /><br /><b>God directly reveals Himself to the Muslim, referents successfully go through, Bill Vallicella’s case fails:</b><br /><br />[<b>Part 1 of 4</b>] ………………….<br /><br />…………………… <b>God directly reveals Himself to the Muslim, referents successfully go through, Bill Vallicella’s case fails:</b><br /><br />[<b>Part 4 of 4</b>] <br /><br />Etc.<br /><br />Just FYI.scbrownlhrmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-22304723896781448212016-01-06T19:34:41.161-08:002016-01-06T19:34:41.161-08:00Dear Tony:
I haven't thought much about your ...Dear Tony:<br /><br />I haven't thought much about your post yet, but I get the feeling we don't really disagree.<br /><br />For example, I would not, and explicitly defended, that Abraham didn't embrace any sort of error.<br /><br />Christi pax.Daniel D. D.noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-40990914713950343172016-01-06T16:38:40.520-08:002016-01-06T16:38:40.520-08:00because both sides --Christians and Jews-- agree t...<i>because both sides --Christians and Jews-- agree that Abraham did not believe in the concept of the Trinity. </i> <br /><br />Abraham is credited - by Christians - with saving faith, i.e. faith united to hope and love that exists only with the indwelling presence of God, faith that is accounted with salvation. <br /><br />Saving faith is <i>always</i> faith in God. It is also faith in <i>all those things necessary for salvation</i>. It is also a movement of belief caused by God himself, with God as the object of that belief. It is also inherently supernatural (i.e. of its very essence beyond human mind's capacity unaided). God does not move a person to embrace ERROR in the act of saving faith, he moves a person to embrace truth. Hence, when we credit Abraham with saving faith, and acknowledge his explicit attestation of the one God, we credit him with <i>explicit</i> belief in the one God and <i>implicit</i> belief in other truths, such as in the Messiah, and in the one-divine-nature shared by God who sends the Messiah and the Messiah thus sent. While Abraham in this life might never have <i>explicitly and clearly</i> recognized the truth of the Trinity, we should never say "he did not believe" in the Trinity". Tonynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-47032744522763709382016-01-06T11:17:30.459-08:002016-01-06T11:17:30.459-08:00The Masked Chicken:
Yes, that story was the one t...The Masked Chicken:<br /><br />Yes, that story was the one that kicked off the flurry of opinion pieces that got Ed to write his previous blog post (to which this one is a follow-up). Follow the links in that post if you want to see the chronology.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11979532520761760862noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8954608646904080796.post-29131436670199957762016-01-06T11:06:41.763-08:002016-01-06T11:06:41.763-08:00This seems to be a timely post because in the news...This seems to be a timely post because in the news, today, was mentioned that a Wheaton College political science professor is being (possibly) fired for stating:<br /><br />"I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book,” she posted on Facebook. “And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God."<br /><br />Wheaton replied:<br /><br />"While Islam and Christianity are both monotheistic, we believe there are fundamental differences between the two faiths, including what they teach about God's revelation to humanity, the nature of God, the path to salvation and the life of prayer."<br /><br />http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-wheaton-college-professor-fired-20160105-story.html<br /><br />I think this is old news, however, if I remember correctly reading about it, before, but it was featured on Google News, today.<br /><br />The Chicken<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> The Masked Chickennoreply@blogger.com