Queen of the Sciences

Tradition is a buzzword in confessional polemics: Protestants (supposedly) say Scripture only, while Catholics and Orthodox (supposedly) say Scripture-and-Tradition without hierarchical triage between them. Of course, it has never been that simple! Luther and Melanchthon and the Formula of Concord all insist that they were in fact more faithful to the tradition of the church against Roman innovation. Roman Catholics rightly point out all that is not explicit in Scripture and yet adhered to faithfully by the church, including Protestants (e.g. the word “Trinity” or infant baptism). For that matter, Scripture itself is a form of Tradition and full of Tradition—as the opening words of I Corinthians 15 attest, and much biblical scholarship of the past two hundred years has excavated.

So what do we even mean by Tradition? How do we judge it or select from it—because everybody in fact does just that? How do we know what is a faithful development from the original apostolic gospel and what is a treacherous deviation? What “principle of critical judgment” or “clear method of discrimination”? David Bentley Hart and his book Tradition and Apocalypse to the rescue! ... maybe.

Related episodes: Theology & Experience 1, Theology & Experience 2, Islam, Bondage of the Will, St Paul among the Philosophers

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You foolish person! I Corinthians 15 isn't the place to come for an instruction manual, but for a redirection toward the one who was raised from the dead for the glory of God. In this episode Dad and I talk through what is—and isn't—the subject matter of the apostle's treatise on resurrection, where to be exuberant (i.e. doxology), where to be sober (i.e. the mechanics of the life to come), and why it makes all the difference to the living of this mortal life right now.

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Sarah discusses "The Water Bus," the last story to be covered from the collection Star Over Bethlehem by Agatha Christie Mallowan, with Kemper Donovan of the All About Agatha podcast!

Everything is authorized to me—but I will not let just anything have authority over me. And therein lies the path of discernment for a baptized Christian body in the world. Sex, marital and otherwise? Food, idolatrous or not? What has the promised resurrection to do with the mortal body in this life? In this episode Dad and I work our way through the 6th, 7th, and 8th chapters of I Corinthians to see both what the Apostle Paul concludes and how he gets there—and what that means for Christian bodies all these centuries later.

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Where is the debater of this age? All over the internet, apparently. The Apostle Paul would not be impressed, and neither should you. If the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God, how much more its folly!

In the meanwhile, however, there is the real and contentious question of what, exactly, makes for God's wisdom and God's strength. Hint: if the answer does not include the cross of Christ, it fails the test. In this episode, Dad and I talk our way carefully through I Corinthians 1, 2, and a bit of 3 to discover how the foolishness of God exceeds human wisdom.

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