Dr Paul Allen

Without question, one of the strangest verses in the Bible is Jude 9: But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Questions have long swirled around this verse and the death and burial of Moses in general. The canonical record of the death and burial of Moses is shrouded in mystery in Deuteronomy 34. Verse 1 says, “Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, opposite Jericho. And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan.”  A few verses later, verses 5-6 add, “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-Peor, but no man knows his burial place to this day.” After seeing the Promised Land from afar, Moses died alone in the presence of the Lord. Then something mysterious happened: Moses did ...

Submission in marriage is no sign of inferiority because, after all, isn’t the second person of the Trinity eternally submissive to the first? And one member of the Trinity is obviously not greater than the other, because that would be heretical. Thus in the Trinity we have a model of two persons of equal ontology, but submissive in differing roles. My question is:  Why should the  eternality  of the submission matter for this argument?  Why can’t we just look at the Son in His incarnation — fully God and fully man — and see His functional subordination, which is as clear as day in Scripture (John  14:28 ; 1 Cor 11:3), and make the very same argument?  The Father and the incarnate Son are two persons of equal ontology, but submissive in differing roles. We don’t need the  eternal  submissiveness (and therefore complex commentary on whether and how to read the economic Trinity back into the immanent Trinity) to make the complementaria...

Aquinas ’s Summa contra gentiles , written to combat Greco- Arabic philosophy , is the greatest apologetic work of the Middle Ages and so merits our attention. Thomas develops a framework for the relationship of faith and reason that includes the Augustinian signs of credibility. He begins by making a distinction within truths about God.  On the one hand, there are truths that completely surpass the capability of human reason, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity . On the other hand, many truths lie within the grasp of human reason, such as the existence of God. In the first three volumes of the Summa contra gentiles, Thomas attempts to prove these truths of reason, including the existence and nature of God , the orders of creation, the nature and end of man, and so forth. But when he comes to the fourth volume, in which he handles subjects like the Trinity, the incarnation, the sacraments, and the last things, he suddenly changes his method of approach. He states that t...

Karl Barth (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) It’s not just what we say, but how we say it, that matters. Peter reminds us to be “always prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame” ( 1 Pet 3:15-16 ). We have to be ready with arguments and reasons, but we have to give thought also to how we present them. Good Arguments First and foremost we need to avoid the ubiquitous ad hominem (“to/concerning the person”) variety—otherwise known as “personal attacks.” Poor papers often focus on the person: both the critic and the one being criticized. This is easier, of course, because one only has to express one’s own opinions and reflections. A good paper will tell us more about the issues in the debate than about the debaters. (This of course does not rule out relevant biographical informat...