Tarot, Philosophy, and Christian Mysticism
Many Christians are wondering: can you be a Christian and believe in astrology? In short, yes. You can be a Christian and believe in quite a number of things like astrology, Tarot, crystals, etc. But isn’t that pagan and against God? Doesn’t the Bible say things like divination and “sorcery” are forbidden? There are definitely … Read more
Philosophers and theologians often describe God as a kind of ultimate necessary being that undergirds the contingency of the world. And not a “being” as a kind of “entity.” God is not an entity. God is not an agent in the ordinary sense. If God is anything, they are beyond the limitations of that distinction. … Read more
I was lost but now I was found. I was in darkness but now I have come into the light. I was broken and now I am saved. These are all familiar metaphors of Christian “testimony,” that age-old genre overflowing with cliches and dead metaphors whereby former nonbelievers recount how terrible their lives were until … Read more
This post is the result of a spontaneous outflow of thought on Jung and Religion, as it relates to Christian Theology. Part prayer, part meditation, part musing, I hope you, the reader, enjoy the journey as I meander through the landscape of Christian theology while wearing Jungian lenses. My aim is to poetically explore the … Read more
Did Jesus bodily rise from the dead? This is the core question of Christianity. Many Christians believe that the entire crux of Christianity depends on the truth or falsity of this claim. Such Christians believe that if we could someone travel back in time and discover that Jesus’ physical body was still in the tomb then the … Read more
The central claim of the orthodox Christian faith is that Jesus Christ was crucified and three days later was resurrected. The Christian scholar N.T. Wright argues from a careful study of Jewish and Christian sources that the early Christian apostles claimed very specifically that Jesus underwent a bodily resurrection. From a Jewish context, this is … Read more
Faith without works Paul said in Romans 3:28 that “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.” Verses like this have given rise to the central Protestant doctrine of sola fide, or faith alone, which is the idea that we are “saved by grace alone” rather than … Read more
What is Daimonic psychology? It is the study of the phenomenon of people reporting the presence of “personal guardian spirits,” a phenomenon that has been attested cross-culturally for thousands of years. In the Christian tradition, we call them “Guardian Angels.” “God Himself begins to live in me not only as my Creator but as my … Read more
The term “omnipresence” has become cold and abstract, rattled off in a chain of impressive-sounding predicates, like a used car salesman hyping up a luxury model. It is usually defined as the property of being present everywhere at once. But what does “present” really mean? Present in what way? How does omnipresence work? As it … Read more
Wisdom 7:25 describes Wisdom as “a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty.” What is an emanation in this context? What does it mean that Wisdom emanates from God? We see the concept of emanation constantly in Neoplatonism, but how does emanation work in Christian theology? Here’s a metaphor I find helpful to my … Read more