Posts Tagged ‘God’

I am almost **.5 years old, and my students are in their teens.  Some of their parents are younger than my sons.  In my post “On Aging” (https://www.billisley.com/2023/01/on-aging/#more-4730) I mentioned discussing the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard with them. That experience resulted in a conjunction of theological truth with the spiritual life, being a lifelong learner, and the high and dread calling of the teacher. Read the rest of this entry »

The famed Swiss theologian Karl Barth once spoke of theology as “the most beautiful of all the sciences”[1] because God, its subject, is beautiful.  Theological aesthetics, by which is meant reflection on the nature and experience of beauty using the categories of the Christian[2] revelation, is a subject that only in the past few years has begun to receive serious attention.  It is, however, one in which theological exposition sheds a unique light on individual doctrine and lends itself naturally to worship and the quest for holiness. Read the rest of this entry »

In the realm of epistemology, the Bible brings a richly multifaceted understanding of truth and knowledge. While most traditional philosophical definitions of truth and knowledge focus on concepts and abstractions, the biblical understanding is broader and thus more holistic. Read the rest of this entry »

Sexual sin is so predominantly the sin in the minds of many that the words “lust” and “immorality” are understood to refer exclusively to it.  This error led Dorothy Sayers to title her essay on the seven deadly sins “The Other Six Deadly Sins.”[1] The consequences of this error are so extensive that they need to be exposed before we can even begin to discuss the sin of sexual lust.  We’ll look at the two most deleterious consequences. Read the rest of this entry »

Gluttony is the inordinate or excessive love of food and drink.  The simplicity of this definition may obscure the theological and psychological depths of this deadly sin. The concluding line of the previous post on avarice, which described gluttony as the “falsely jovial sin,” was intended to hint at its potential oversimplification.  In particular, it was meant to highlight two important challenges to understanding the sin of gluttony. Read the rest of this entry »