Common Places

In this episode, Dr. Sam Negus uses the biblical accounts of the construction and dedication of the Tabernacle and the Temple, looking at the Scriptures themselves and at the religious “worldview” of Israel and Judah's ancient near-eastern neighbors, as a case study in how to read the Bible with the eyes and ears of its original hearers. Although God is transcendent, unchanging, and eternal, He reveals Himself to mankind in time through human institutions, human language, and human culture, and without this understanding, we may struggle to hear all the resonances of God’s self-revelation.

What does Proverbs teach us about what it means to be human? In this episode, Dr. Quinn shows that Proverbs (and Scripture on the whole) is more concerned with being human than with answering the many questions concerning what is a human being, important though these questions are.

Can we ever know that we are saved? If so, how? Find out why the doctrine of assurance was called the most dangerous doctrine of the Protestant Reformers, and why it still matters for Christians today.

Can we ever know that we are saved? If so, how? Find out why the doctrine of assurance was called the most dangerous doctrine of the Protestant Reformers, and why it still matters for Christians today.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Hall Teaching Fellow, Ryan Hurd. The sheer and utter delight of the theologian is knowing and speaking of God. As we consider the development of theology as a science or formalized discipline, we find that two things are especially important: the making of categories in theology, and of habits in the theologian. Analogous to Aristotle’s "Ten Categories", or even the Transcendentals, the development of categories was the production of adequate or reduced summaries which sweep in everything within both the natural and supernatural orders in a condensed fashion. After centuries of sweat and no small genius, the “divine names” and “trinitarian notions,” in the natural and supernatural order respectively, resulted. For example, we find the divine names “simplicity, infinity", and others of that sort; “wisdom, goodness, and others of that sort”; “incorporeality, impassibility", and others of that sort; “reasoning, laughing", and others of that sort: these adequately reduce everything to be said of God absolutely speaking. Similarly, we find the trinitarian notions, paternity, filiation, active and passive spiration, and even innascibility: these sufficiently catalog, in inchoate form, whatever God has made known of the holy Trinity. After such categories were developed, even further categories came to be e.g., the theological moves “eminently,” “formally,” and “analogically,” i.e., the mode in which reasoning, wisdom, and being respectively are said of God. All this was in attempt to fulfill the thrilling task of theology: saying “everything of being and goodness” with us and among creatures of God, as Thomas says. This includes, of course, not only every aspect of act and perfection, which are to be retained of God, but even every aspect of potency and imperfection, which are to be removed from God; and of course, it further includes every aspect in holy Scripture, which are to be retained and removed as appropriate. As such categories were made in theology, opportunity arose for these categories to inform the intellect of the theologian and exercise and mature him so that they became second-nature: such is the making of theological habits. And indeed, we find habits are made not only for the names (and notions) of God, but even for the correspondent theological moves. These habits made theologians to be, and at various points in history made great theologians to be. In this lecture, Mr. Ryan Hurd considers these things, with special focus on what categories and habits are as found in the development of theology especially among the medievals and neoscholastics, and why they are important for contemporary theology today.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Press Editor-in-chief (and Davenant Hall instructor) Onsi Kamel entitled "The Birth of Secularity: Henry More, Metaphysics, and the Battle for God's Spirit." In recent decades, intellectual historians have attempted to chart the development of “secular modernity,” generally locating its origins in medieval or Protestant metaphysics. Key claims of these genealogies crumble under scrutiny, not least of all blaming the Reformation for a metaphysical revolution. And yet the metaphysical gulf separating the medieval and modern periods is undeniable: the world of Kant and Schleiermacher is not the world of Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. If historians wish to better understand the development of secularity, a more helpful entry point is a seventeenth-century debate about the immateriality of the soul, the nature of space, and the spirit of God. Central to this debate was Henry More (1614 - 1687), a Cambridge Platonist philosopher now largely forgotten, but prominent in his lifetime. In this lecture, Mr. Onsi Kamel explores More's defense of traditional metaphysics against Cartesianism. This will both illuminate how intellectual change results as much from ideas failing as it does them succeeding, and explore the origin of a key shift within modernity: moving from an analogical understanding of God to a univocal one.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Teaching Fellow, Dr. Matthew Hoskins Today, Christians must defend the idea that Christ is God. Yet for much of church history, they had to defend the idea that he is human. How, and why, did they do it? In this lecture, Dr. Matthew Hoskin explores how the last four of the Seven Ecumenical Councils upheld the truth that God really became flesh. Beginning with the confession of "one person in two natures" from Chalcedon (451), the lecture will then explore its influence on the symphonic vision of Maximus the Confessor and Constantinople III (681), and how John of Damascus and Nicaea II (787) articulated the full impact of the incarnation and God's intrusion into our lives and our worship. Understanding these councils will cause us to bow in worship of the Triune God and his works as we celebrate Christmas.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Teaching Fellow, Rev. Dr. Matthew Colvin entitled "The Real Jesus Code: Subtlety and Indirection in Jesus' Communication. Given how familiar Christians are with the Gospels, it is remarkable how much of Jesus' communication - both spoken and unspoken - still puzzles us. How can we make sense of Christ's most puzzling moments of teaching? In this lecture, Dr. Matthew Colvin explores neglected nuances of Jesus’ communication - specifically, moments involving indirection, whether verbally or by the use of coded symbols. After discussing the motives for indirection, the lecture will consider these communications by using Second Temple and Rabbinic Jewish sources to illuminate their meaning with new nuance and vividness.

A lecture with Q&A by Davenant Teaching Fellow, Eric Hutchinson entitled "Maps of Misreading: The Hidden Influence of Horace in Augustine’s Confessions." Augustine's engagement with the poet Virgil in the "Confessions" has been much researched. On the other hand, his engagement with another great Roman poet, Horace, has been almost entirely neglected. Yet we know Augustine read Horace; at key points in the "Confessions", he refers to and alludes to his poetry. The time has come to reappraise Horace's influence on Augustine. In this lecture, Dr. E.J. Hutchinson will specifically explore how knowledge of Horace's influence illuminates Augustine's famed comparison of himself to Virgil's wandering hero Aeneas. A close reading of a unique Latin phrase lifted directly from Horace's "Odes" reveals that Augustine does not want his readers to think of the "Aeneid" alone in a simple or straightforward way. Instead, he uses Horace, and particularly one of Horace's poems about Virgil, to formulate his own nuanced response to the Aeneid. This fresh reading of the "Confessions" has implications for how we understand both Augustine's view of his pre-conversion state, and his complex view of the appropriation of pagan literature.

"The Love that Moves the Sun and All Other Stars" - Gregory Wilbur and Nathan Johnson by Davenant Institute