Douglas Knight

The Gospel tells us about the unity and integrity of the human being. It reminds us that each of us is a unique being, yet we are not ourselves apart from other people. Each of us exists within a series of dualities. Each of us is either a woman or a man; none is a [...]

[Read more →]

1. There are two economies, of the Church and the world. This distinction and duality is the basis of all others. Consequently, there are two contemporary economies, that of the economy of God, announced by the Christian gospel, and the modern economy, for which we have to identify a corresponding ideology of ‘Modernity’.
2. [...]

[Read more →]

Let’s call it the Augustine Group. Why Augustine? Because it was Augustine who said that there are two cities, that is, two societies – the Church and the world. In the ‘City of God’ Augustine says there are these two distinct communities, one is hidden in the other. There is ‘Society’, our nation or [...]

[Read more →]

Why is our economy in trouble?
Our economy is in trouble because our culture is in trouble. Our culture is in trouble because it has adopted a dramatically reduced account of the human person. It has adopted this reduced account of the person because it does not care to hear the Christian gospel which tells us [...]

[Read more →]

The financial crisis that we are suffering represents the crisis in confidence of this society. We can no longer be taken at our word because we ourselves do not believe our ourselves. It is us who do not believe that our word is our bond or that we are good for the money. Money is [...]

[Read more →]

We can only wonder at, and try to recapture for ourselves, the insight shown by the early Christians and by Christians down to the beginning of the second millennium, who placed the Christ of the ascension in the dome of their churches. When the faithful gathered to manifest and become the body of Christ, [...]

[Read more →]

How central to the Christian understanding of the meaning of marriage is the sexual difference between men and women? It is this question that Christopher Roberts addresses in his Creation and Covenant: The Significance of Sexual Difference in the Moral Theology of Marriage, and no one paying attention to the arguments about the blessing of [...]

[Read more →]

Maximus views the liturgy thus: the first entrance of the bishop signifies the first coming of Christ and his saving passion; the bishop’s entering the sanctuary and mounting the throne is nothing less than Christ’s ascension into heaven and sitting on the heavenly throne; the reading of the Gospel signifies the end of this world, [...]

[Read more →]

Every Christian doctrine is an exemplification of the Christian doctrine of God. The Christian confession of God and that God is for us, requires an account of the generous provision of God, which is what providence is, and it requires all the other doctrines that make our talk about providence meaningful. The Christian doctrine of [...]

[Read more →]

Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to paradise, our ascension into the kingdom of heaven, our return to the adoption of sons, our liberty to call God our Father, our being made partakers of the grace of Christ, our being called children of light, our sharing in eternal glory, and, in a word, our [...]

[Read more →]

Teaching Christian doctrine can start from a number of places. Indeed, it must start from several places and then show the relationships between them. It can start from:
(1) the evangelical narrative – the bible
(2) the set of doctrines developed from that narrative
(3) the history of the development of doctrine
(4) the worship of the Church [...]

[Read more →]

In the De Decretis Athanasius argues against the opinion he had heard Eusebius express that the Son alone participates in the Father while we participate in the Son. If that were so, we would then be the Son’s sons. Rather, we are sons of the same Father as the Son is, our sonship being granted [...]

[Read more →]

The Aquinas Center for the Theological Renewal Spring Newsletter indicates that they are having a busy time at Ave Maria (FL).
There are a couple of strong book series. Out or forthcoming from Sapientia Press are:
Francis Martin’s Sacred Scripture: Disclosure of the Word
Benedict Ashley OP The Ashley Reader
Guy Mansini’s [...]

[Read more →]

The spiritual theologian Maximus the Confessor (580-662), writing long before the introduction of Aristotle to the medieval West, likewise insisted that soul and body together constitute the human being. Taking as his basis the Incarnation of the divine Logos, he argued that the genesis of soul and body is strictly simultaneous. “The soul arises at [...]

[Read more →]

According to the Pope’s ‘nuptial anthropology’, marriage partners are not merely turned towards one another in a dualistic relationship: they are also open towards a third, towards the child which expresses the unity of both in one flesh. Angelo Scola describes the structure of this relationship as one of ‘asymmetrical reciprocity’. It is precisely in [...]

[Read more →]

In a Lent talk for Radio 4 Canon Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, poured scorn on the penal substitution account of the atonement. Jeffrey John, a wonderful communicator, communicated that the Christian Church has been teaching a vicious God. Canon John identifies the appalling doctrine the whole Church has been mistakenly though uniformly [...]

[Read more →]

Why is it that we moderns are so confused about the sources of our identity? We cannot decide whether we are essentially bodies, and must obey the dictates of our biology, or whether our bodies are simply vehicles which we can use or abuse, as though nothing our body does really touched us.
The [...]

[Read more →]

The first symptom is Europe’s refusal to mention its Judeo-Christian roots in the Preamble to the European Constitutional Treaty, which, following the French and Dutch referendums, has now failed. The title itself is revealing of an ambiguity. A Treaty is not a Constitution and a Constitution cannot be a Treaty. The European Constitutional Treaty is [...]

[Read more →]

Just seen the bibliography of Oswald Bayer at Wiki.de and remembered what a colossus Bayer is.
He is Professor Emeritus at Tübingen, a Lutheran, but more than that, he is a Luther – really shocking evangelical power, wielded with very great intellectual sophistication and gentleness. His line is that the Reformation is much more modern [...]

[Read more →]

The Thomas International is the first stage in the establishment of a new Christian/Catholic university. It is offering conferences, courses, teaching material, links – inspiration and aspiration aplenty.
So far it has set up the Ralph McInerny Center for Thomistic Studies
The purpose of the Ralph McInerny Center for Thomistic Studies is to foster a [...]

[Read more →]