Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

‘We are much less inclined than our ancestors were to take “theories of human nature” seriously, much less inclined to take ontology or history as a guide to life. We have come to see that the only lesson of either history or anthropology is our extraordinary malleability. We are coming to think of [...]

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Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

‘Being concerned for the true interests of his beloved surely requires that the lover also be moved by a more elementary desire to identify those interests correctly. In order to obey the commands of love, one must first understand what it is that love commands.’

- Harry Frankfurt

‘The intended function of promising and commanding is [...]

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Wolterstorff on Kuyper and Solidarity; Volf on Solidarity and Repentance

Following his review of some of Calvin’s thoughts on the poor in Chapter 4 of Until Justice and Peace Embrace (to which the page numbers in this post refer, unless noted otherwise), Wolterstorff turns to the restating of some of the same themes by Dutch Christian statesman Abraham Kuyper. In 1891, early in the [...]

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Wolterstorff on Calvin and the poor

Hoisted from the comments – er, comment (thanks, Mom) - following my last post on Wolterstorff:
Is therefore Calvinism not only reformation of the church, but also the social order, by nature and natural outpouring of the church’s reform?
In Wolterstorff’s fourth chapter he devotes some space to answering this question – or rather, to allowing Calvin and [...]

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Wolterstorff, Until Justice and Peace Embrace Ch. 1

Recently I’ve begun reading Nicholas Wolterstorff’s 1981 Kuyper Lectures Until Justice and Peace Embrace.  Wolterstorff begins with a brief historical investigation into two broad forms of Christianity, which may be respectively categorized as avertive and formative. To the former belongs the medieval tradition, with its thoroughly otherworldly outlook and its regard for the contemplative life [...]

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