John, Matt, and Paul, inspired by articles by C. J. Dull, discuss the baptist vision set forth by Stanley Hauerwas and James McClendon, and discuss how this provides for a first order unity in the person and work of Christ. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February…

In this sermon, the witness of Scripture to Christ and Christ as interpretive key to Scripture is spelled out, using the Gospel of John and Paul's illustration in Corinthians concerning Moses. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Register h…

In this first podcast on Imaginary Apologetics, it is noted that Anselm's ontological and cosmological arguments pose a logic developed in his atonement theory, focused on a foundational logic, and this is contrasted with Hegel's understanding that the ontological argument is dependent on Christianity and the Person of Christ. Hegel is working from…

Philippians 3:13 describes a stretching forth, in which the past (failures and achievements) are forgotten as part of the focus on the goal of attaining to likeness of Christ. Gregory of Nyssa portrays this Pauline understanding as the eternal dynamic of life in Christ which offers true stability and peace. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan…

The transformative power in conversion and salvation flows backward, redeeming all of our life, so that the end is in the beginning. Our finite lives make sense as they are stretched out in the beginning and end that is Christ. This self-transcendence is realized in being woken up religiously to the love of God, morally to others, intellectually to…

Here is part 2 of the 2 part discussion of the upcoming course Sin and Salvation. John, Matt, and Paul, discuss their theological journey as a journey of friendship. (Sorry, the previous podcast was duplicated but here corrected.) Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of F…

Matt, John and Paul discuss the upcoming course with PBI, Sin and Salvation, which focuses on the peace of Christ, and which pictures the theological journey as only cohering as a continuing journey, in which the beginning is in the end, as with Christ. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will …

In part 2 of discussion of Flannery O'Connor, David, Jonathan, and Paul discuss how her depiction is an explicit defeat of liberal and pietistic notions which believe in the natural competency of the soul. Only an acknowledgement of judgment, evil, and purgation, even as part of a universal salvation, is adequate for the reality of the human condit…

In this discussion Jonathan Heaps, Head of the Lonergan Institute at Seton Hall University, Editor of the Lonergan Review, and author of The Ambiguity of Being: Bernard Lonergan and the Problems of the Supernatural, describes his upcoming class with PBI on Bernard Lonergan. Jonathan describes the resolution that Lonergan brings to the modern theolo…

Colossians 1:15-20 stands at the center of the logic of the New Testament, taken up by Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus, and in the modern period is recovered by Robert Jenson (among others). Apart from this understanding, that Christ is the realization of the eternality of God, Christianity becomes unintelligible. (Sign up for the upcoming…

Jordan Wood brings his series on Maximus to a conclusion, summing up his views on nature, hierarchy, and the possibility of annihilation. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the mea…

David, Jonathan, and Paul in part 1 of this 2 part podcast discuss the novels and short stories of Flannery O'Connor and their challenge to a modern liberal worldview, with their portrayal of inexplicable evil and love. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16…

Jordan Wood describes key texts in patristics and philosophy and then describes the similarities between Hegel and Maximus. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Register here https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings) If you enjoyed th…

Herod lied to the wisemen about his intent, pretending to want to worship Jesus, but slaughtered the innocent children of Bethlehem in an attempt to kill any rival. This provides a working principle for understanding the facade of piety among rulers and the powerful and how to understand the continued slaughter of the innocent in Palestine and else…

Jordan Wood leads a discussion on Maximus' view of the all-embracing and unbelievable love of God as the work being accomplished through the Trinity, in synthesis, personhood, and divine humility. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th. Regis…

Mary consented to the formation of Christ within her womb, and Paul calls all people to consent to Christ being formed within. The other choice is bearing the subpersonal image. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly metho…

Jordan Wood explains Maximus' understanding of the limited role of nature in universal salvation, which unlike in David Hart's theology in which nature contains the full potential of deification and salvation, there is the necessity of realization in time and history of the actual working out of salvation and the defeat of evil beyond nature in per…

The Lord's Prayer is answered by Christ in the incarnation and parallels and echoes the prayer of Mary and Zacharias as each of us become the bearers of the incarnate Christ through freely carrying out "Thy Will" in enacting the Kingdom of God on Earth. Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonerga…

Jordan follows Maximus argument of deification to conclude that personhood, whether divine or human is not reducible or achievable apart from the reality of the person of Christ (in contradistinction from the work of David Bentley Hart's syllogistic understanding). (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Be…

Human conceptuality and understanding is limited by binaries, differences and irresolvable dualisms, but Paul describes the synthesizing work of Christ as a knowledge exceeding human conceptuality. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a mo…

Jordan Wood lays out Maximus explanation of the Lord's Prayer, which not only explains how prayer can both seek action from God and change the one praying, but accords with the logic of creation as incarnation. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!…

Jordan Wood addresses the determinate good and love of Christ, in contrast to abstractions, and addresses the Neo-Platonism of Hart and Milbank, and the true orthodoxy of Hegel, as opposed to the received neo-Kantianism of Lonergan. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!…

Jordan Wood, in part two of a three part series on Maximus' Mystagogia, describes the paradoxical relationship between church and world, soul and body, idealism and realism, the apophatic and cataphatic, and creation and incarnation, demonstrating that these independent realms are integrated and interdependent. If you enjoyed this podcast, please c…

In Romans 13:1, it was under the darkest of circumstances that Paul outlined the responsibility of Christians to the state. In light of the fact that Jesus has been slain and Paul himself will shortly be murdered, Christians can defeat the powers through the same revolutionary subordination, defeating death (the power of this world's kingdoms) and …

Jordan Wood introduces the alternative logic of the incarnation in which the symbol is the symbolized, and usual modes of ordering cause and effect and time and eternity, the apophatic and cataphatic, or the Platonic and Aristotelian are surpassed. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!…