The Roots of Christian Mysticism (Chapters 2 and 3)

Clement reminds us that, although creation reveals something about God’s glory, God is not limited by any category. God is not an object to be grasped within or outside the cosmos. God is not an object at all. He is the ground and desire of all beings. Clement insists on this point again and again […]

The Roots of Christian Mysticism (Chapter 1)

Olivier Clement’s classic book is a commentary on the mystical reflections of the most influential Christians in the first millennium of the Church. The work is divided into three major parts which consist of patristic meditations on the doctrine of God (part I), on spiritual exercises (part II), and on contemplation (part III). Such distinctions […]

Berdyaev On Personality and Suffering

Personality is not only capable of experiencing suffering, but in a certain sense personality is suffering. The struggle to achieve personality and its consolidation are a painful process. The self-realization of personality presupposes resistance, it demands a conflict with the enslaving power of the world, a refusal to conform to the world. . . . […]

Hans Urs Von Balthasar: Predestination

“When God’s universal plan for the world, for its creation as for its redemption, thus definitively moves into view, it becomes impossible to interpret the doctrine of election in the Old and New Covenants, with their clear preference for one individual vis-à-vis others, other than as a moment within this universal plan. . . . […]

The Thomistic Problem of the Sufferings of Hell

In my university days, I found C.S. Lewis’s notion of Hell compelling. And although I hold to some form of apokatastasis now, I still find Lewis’s understanding of Hell persuasive, at least as temporary punishment. In my Thomistic phase I had to let go of this understanding of Hell. The problem of the pains of […]

An Ode to Traditionalists and Company

Angels and men Strangers and kin Live without doubt As all know their route Lives without fear Their God is so near: And easy is prayer For them not a care Who can suffer these magicians So also their false politicians?

Bulgakov’s Vatican Dogma (Notes)

Part I Sergius Bulgakov has written a trenchant critique of the Vatican’s move to define the absolute authority of the pope and the dogmatization of the pontiff’s infallibility apart from the whole Church. He contends not only that real discussion was stifled at the council by Pope Pius IX himself but also that it was […]

Nolunt

They do not want what could be They do not despair of what is lost; Their god would not save you or me He counts the wages, he counts the cost; In the balance he tips the scales, One to the left one to the right; What is it to him who passes or fails […]

Summary of “Impassibility As Transcendence: On the Infinite Innocence of God” by David Bentley Hart

In this essay Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart challenges the later Western development of the doctrine of predestination as presented in the de auxiliis controversy of the early modern period. After providing us with a proper grammar of divine transcendence, Hart goes on to give us the historical context of the de auxiliis controversy and, […]

Reconciling Tradition: Damnation and Apokatastasis

Tradition ensures that Christians believe and pray according to the mind of Jesus Christ. Christianity without Tradition is not possible and we know that we are Christians in so far as we receive what has been given. So much is obvious to those who are familiar with historic Christianity. But questions still remain about the […]