Hermeneutica Etcetera

This is the eighth session in the class I'm teaching on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). I'm using Luke Timothy Johnson's book, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters, as the basic framework/resource for the class. In this episode, we cover a couple more claims from the first article of the Creed, and I will publish a supplemental episode covering the rest of ch.3.

Hey! Thanks for tuning in! Whether you're new or have been following along with the sessions, I'm teaching a class on the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). In this week's episode, we start talking about the articles of the Creed, starting with the first article on God the Father.  

The first article of the Creed is THE sine qua non (without which, nothing) of the rest of the Creed and, arguably, of all of Jewish and Christian tradition. “It is the root out of which all the rest grows” (Johnson, p65). It contains, as a whole, the first critical theological judgment necessary for the development of an orthodox Christian theological grammar. Employing the linguistic principles discussed previously (i.e., positive, negative, and analogical language) we can affirm that the Creed, while not exhaustive or “full,” still speaks truly of the One God.

Here is the passage of Luke Timothy Johnson's book, The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters, which I read in the second half of the class:

“My aim [in the commentary to follow] is…to provide Christians a better sense of [1] what the words they declare each week in the liturgy mean, [2] how they are grounded in Scripture, [3] how they express the experience of the church, and [4] how they affect the way one lives as a creedal Christian” (p65; emphasis and numbering added). This is the framework for the rest of the book and will provide a nice handy "heuristic" for the rest of the class. So buckle up, 'cuz it's going to be a wild ride from here on in!

You can find resources for further study at my blog, hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com.

As the episode title reads, this is SUPPLEMENTAL to previous class sessions. So, if you haven't listened to those earlier episodes, you should probably do that for this one to have some context. 

I pretty much summarize ch.2 from Luke Timothy Johnson's book, The Creed, so it also functions like a reading companion for that chapter. All the episodes I'm recording are meant to help people stick with Johnson's conversation/commentary/investigation, so I hope you can get the book and follow along!

Be sure to check out the resources page on my blog, hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com/christian-toolbox/

peace!

Be sure to follow this episode up with the SUPPLEMENT I recorded for this episode. It fills out the rest of ch.2 in Luke Timothy Johnson's The Creed so that we can dive right into ch.3 in the next episode.

Don't forget to check out the Christian Toolbox page on my blog at hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com/christian-toolbox/

Also, don't forget to check out episode 91 of the podcast Pints With Aquinas hosted by Matt Fradd.

In this class session we talk about lots of important things: the difference/relationship between "positive" and "negative" theology (aka, kataphatic and apophatic theology), Arianism and modalism (both of which are heresies), the relationship between faith and science (both of which we can say are scientia, ways of knowing the same world differently) as represented in the Christian theological phrase fides et ratio, "faith and reason." If you need some extra info on the two heresies mentioned in the episode, go look at Pints With Aquinas episode 91: "10 Heresies every Christian should know about, with Trent Horn" hosted by Matt Fradd.

Be sure to check out my blog at hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com where you can find more resources for digging down deep into the Church's Great Conversation, part of which is influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a selection of which appears as a prayer at the beginning of this episode (from his work Mystical Theology, ch1):

"O Trinity, beyond being, beyond divinity, beyond goodness, and guide to Christians in divine wisdom, | direct us to the mystical summits more than unknown and beyond light, There the simple, absolved, and unchanged mysteries of theology lied hidden in the darkness beyond light of the hidden mystical silence, | there, in the greatest darkness, that beyond all that is most evident exceedingly illuminates the sightless intellects, there, in the wholly imperceptible and invisible, that beyond all that is most evident fills to overflowing the sightless intellects with the glories beyond all beauty. | This is my prayer. ..." (in William Placher, Readings in the History of Christian Theology, vol 1, p82)

Welcome back to the latest episode of Hermeneutica Etcetera! This episode continues the series of classes I am conducting of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381). 

A great little reference tool for this episode and others to come will be an episode from the show Pints With Aquinas that briefly names and describes ten heresies that have arisen in the Church: (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0ppYDqu1GZBYMHamhZgTDn) #pintswithaquinas #pwa #mattfradd #trenthorn

In the episode I read a segment from St. Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Trallians, copied below and which can be found in full at the links below:

In addition to the links provided above, the portion of the chapter quoted can also be found here: https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01/anf01.v.iv.ix.html

The blog can be found here (https://hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com/) where you can also find links to other resources.

This is the third session of a class I am teaching on The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters, by New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. Thanks for taking the time to take a listen! I hope these conversations help you engage in the Great Conversation the Church has been having for the better part of 2,000 years.

Here's a link to my blog where I hope to put up new content soon!

This episode is one in a series of episodes that will present class sessions I conduct on "the Creed" (that is, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381). The class will roughly follow a book entitled The Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters by New Testament scholar Luke Timothy Johnson. The hope is that these class sessions can act like "conversation partners" for those members who miss the class, and for those listeners who are not members of our church but are interested in "digging down deep" into Scripture and Tradition.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com/2021/08/24/off-with-his-head/

I was invited to preach by Calvary Lutheran Church, Richland Hills, TX, several months back on 11 July 2021. The following is an audio version of the sermon I preached. You can find the a video of the sermon here. The lectionary readings for that Sunday were as follows:

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://hermeneuticaetc.wordpress.com/2021/08/17/birthdays-of-the-dead/