Sublime

before modernity, theology and biblical scholarship were the same thing.

Note Hull’s comment that if a person or group dissociates the species-specific designation “Homo sapiens” from the designation “human being,” with all of its attendant moral and theological implications, then that person or group has a “less plausible position.” Why? Why should that which we see, hear, feel, taste, or touch (or observe through scie

these essays on Bonhoeffer’s social thought are motivated by an anthropological concern: When we consider the rapid scientific advances of genetics and globally recurring human atrocities, does it not become apparent that human dignity requires a transcendent reference point?

If God does not exist, then life is objectively meaningless; but man cannot live consistently and happily knowing that life is meaningless; so in order to be happy he pretends life has meaning. But this is, of course, entirely inconsistent—for without God, man and the universe are without any real significance.

there’s no reason to let Paul win the day and reject James. Both views—that faith is a way of life and a gift from God (Paul) and that faith includes believing some truths and must be supplemented by our effort (James)—may be true when interpreted truly.

to articulate even the simplest biblical truths—who God is and what saving faith is,

Christianity offers a gospel and faith, not answers to all our questions, even our very good questions. Christianity is not a philosophy.

“Enlightenment” philosophers included Immanuel Kant, who claimed that the traditional proofs of God’s existence were inadequate and that only an absolute ethic could be established (the “categorical imperative”); Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who dug his “Ditch” between absolute, philosophical truth on the one hand, and what he considered the inadequac