Origen on the need for threatening the uneducated with punishment

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"[...]just as some words are suitable for use with children and are appropriate for their tender age, in order to exhort them to be better, because they still are very yong, so also with those whom the word calls 'the foolish things of this world and the base things and the things that are despised' the ordinary interpretation of punishments is suitable because they have not the capacity for any other means of conversion and of repentance from many evils, except that of fear and the suggestion of punishment. The Bible accordingly says that only those who have been utterly pure in doctrine, morals, and mind will remain untouched by fire and punishments; whereas it says that people not of this character, who need the ministry of punishment by fire according to their merits, will suffer these punishments until an appointed end such as may be fittingly applied by God to those who, although made in His image, have lived contrary to the intention of the nature that is in His image." (Con. Cel. V,16)

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Nein!(?) A negative "point of contact" in the Epistle to Diognetus?

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Billede
Still working on The Epistle to Diognetus , which keeps making associations to modern theology pop up. This time it's Karl Barth's debate with Emil Brunner. Consider the epistle's claim that, “[...]being convicted in the past time by our own deeds as unworthy of life, we might now be made deserving by the goodness of God, and having made clear our inability to enter into the kingdom of God of ourselves, might be enabled by the ability of God.” (9.1, Lightfoot) and “Having then in the former time demonstrated the inability of our nature to obtain life, and having now revealed a Saviour able to save even creatures which have no ability, He willed that for both reasons we should believe in His goodness[...]” (9.6, Lightfoot) If by 'dialectical theology' we mean that God's 'yes' and 'no' are inseparable (Tillich), this is certainly a specimen of such. The two elements, negative and positive, come together in faith (in an Aufhebung! ), or? A
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Why "contra fatum"?

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Billede
Gregory of Nyssa Contra Fatum ( lat. against fate , death or the speech of the gods ) is the Latin title of the Church father Gregory of Nyssa's (c. 335-394 ) short treatise against fatalism . Gregory defended the doctrine of free will ,  rejecting the belief that human destiny is determined by the celestial movements . Analogously, this blog is intended as a criticism of modern rationalism (s), whether in the form of political, technological, sociological or economical abstractions (modern astrology!), religious or spiritual-metaphysical ideas such as divine predestination and determinism. All lack a sense that human beings are created in the image of God , with freedom, infinite value , and a reason that cannot be reduced to the formulas of rationalism . Christus Victor! On the positive side the blog is a defense of the classical idea of the atonement effected by the incarnation, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ: Rather than
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