From Triablogue blog – file this under reasonable faith: A brilliant example of where lack of real logic can lead in apologetics. Follow this closely and be illumined. In a recent thread, ANNOYED PINOY asked me to repost something I wrote almost a decade ago. It was a list of 51 Biblical proofs of a Pauline […]
The Potted Creed in the Book of Romans
April 23, 2015 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon An adequate theological analysis of the Incarnation must devote some attention to the Greek verb gignomai normally translated as “to become.” Most often in biblical narratives this verb is used in an impersonal sense, egeneto (“it happened”), the equivalent of the Hebrew ve-yahi. When it refers to the Incarnate Word, […]
Paul and the Church vs. Every Marcion Since Then
March 28, 2015 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon God seems to have chosen the Apostle Paul to demonstrate—arguably more than any other person in Christian history—how the life “in Christ” arrives at insight through experience. That is to say, the reader of the Pauline letters can actually discern, by the study of these letters, how their author, in […]
Once Saul, Always Saul
October 7, 2014 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon The Bible does not explain why the name of Saul, the early persecutor of Christians, was changed to Paul, but also the Bible does not discourage speculation on the point. Undiscouraged, then, let us speculate. A modern view speculates that the man in question had two names all along; he […]
Haggling with the Almighty
August 4, 2014 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon As types of Christ our Intercessor with the Father, the Old Testament speaks of several men who were efficacious in intercession. Three of these are Abraham, Moses, and Job. In the case of Abraham, God affirmed his standing as an intercessor when He told the offending Abimelech that Abraham “will […]
Farewell to the Rapture
July 11, 2014 By
by N. T. Wright Little did Paul know how his colorful metaphors for Jesus’ second coming would be misunderstood two millennia later. The American obsession with the second coming of Jesus — especially with distorted interpretations of it — continues unabated. Seen from my side of the Atlantic, the phenomenal success of the Left Behind books appears […]
The Necessary Gospel in the Old Testament
May 18, 2014 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon We, as Christians, must learn the Gospel; all of it. When the New Testament uses the expression “Scriptures,” it normally refers to the Old Testament. The earliest Christian preaching appealed to that body of literature as a necessary component in the Gospel itself. For example, in the Church’s first recorded […]
Paul On Providence And Predestination
December 6, 2013 By
by Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon Augustine’s Mistake (or we could say ‘Calvin’s Confusion’) is one of the deepest and most tragic blunders in the history of theology. Toward the end of a long reflection on the Holy Spirit—Romans 8—the Apostle Paul introduces the theme of Divine Providence, the profoundly mysterious influence God brings to bear […]
