19 Oct 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
I'm reading Alan Jacobs' recent book The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. I'm more persuaded by some aspects of it, less so by others, and stimulated by all. I likely will not have time to write up a full review, which would in any case probably be longer than the book...
Read more → 03 Oct 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In response to yesterday's post on Benjamin Rush, a colleague in History, Matt Gaetano, points to more on this issue among early Americans as recorded in Ellis Sandoz's book Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America. Today we'll look at one brief episode in the drama. John Adams, a frequent...
Read more → 13 Sep 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
God changes us over time. That change begins with the lesson--which may take a lifetime to learn in the way that it really needs to be learned--that the first thing we must do is to give up trying to justify, or vindicate, ourselves. Abandoning the desire for self-justification is the necessary precondition...
Read more → 11 Sep 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Augustine talks a lot about moms in the Confessions: particularly his own mother and the church as the mother of the faithful--though not Mary. This is unsurprising, because Augustine knows nothing of Marian devotion. But it is not only the church who is the mother of believers; Scripture is, too....
Read more → 10 Sep 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In response to the question, "What was God doing before he created the universe?," one frequently encounters the claim that Augustine said, "He was preparing hell for those who ask such questions." In other words, Augustine was owning the confused. But Augustine had more sense than to use such a strategy avant...
Read more → 29 Aug 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In this installment, Contarini continues on the theme of justification before God by imputation, that is, by the merit of Christ apart from any works of our own. The justice or righteousness by which we are justified--by which we are wholly pleasing to God--is that which is gratuitously given to us, in...
Read more → 17 Aug 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
We've now referred to "twofold justice" a few times, viz. the justice and charity inherent in us by grace, and the justice of Christ's perfect merit imputed to us through union with Christ by faith. But, having dealt with the potential ambiguity of the term "justice," the cardinal comes now to the important...
Read more → 15 Aug 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
Herewith the next installment. (Read that first and then circle back up here.) A couple of important points: Contarini denies that we are justified because of inherent faith, as though "faith" in the proposition were treated as a good work that is equivalent to "righteousness." Next, he denies that...
Read more → 10 Aug 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson
Cleaning out some paperwork in my office reminded me that, after three years, I should get back to this series and finish it at some point. Lo these many months ago I started a new translation of Cardinal Gasparo Contarini's treatise De iustificatione, "On Justification." I was not quite halfway through...
Read more → 27 Jul 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
"Literalism" frequently gets a bad rap nowadays when it comes to the Bible. The word "literal" is fraught with ambiguities, especially in its modern usages, which I have no intention of getting into here. But the practice of reading the Bible ad litteram--"according to the natural sense of the words,"...
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