Sublime

Theists and atheists – and those who are comfortable in neither slot – should acknowledge that though they may have come to diametrically opposed views, they are responding to the same facts.

This Pauline emphasis on union with Christ had been a dominant motif in Calvin’s exposition of the gospel and the Christian life.

The emergence of humans and other living creatures is best explained as the intended result of an intelligent mind, rather than as the happenstance of an unintended and undirected process.

Theology mattered greatly in the substantive moral systems the church once offered. We needed to think deeply about what certain practices do to us, both in time and in eternity. We needed to be concerned about which forms, virtues, and character traits draw us near to the divine or toward damnation.

This theological aggression soon led to active persecution, as bad theology often does,