I don't think he does himself any favors with this riposte:
https://theopolisinstitute.com/leithart_post/good-god-a-response/
A classic disconnect between the self-image someone is attempting to project and what he actually reveals about himself.
I don't think I have seen anything as arrogant as that article.
ReplyDeleteThe funny thing about Hart's polemics is that for all the overweening conceit and intellectual posturing, his position is fundamentally stupid. On the one hand he adopts an essentially secular view of how the OT came into being. On that view, the OT can't be divine revelation. On that view, the OT contains abhorrent commands. Ancient Jews really did commit atrocities, which they sanctify by imputing to divine command. On that view, those are historical facts.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, he invokes the antiseptic of allegorical exegesis. But if, by his own admission, the secular explanation concerning the origins of the OT is correct, then allegorical exegesis stands in defiance of historical reality. If the secular explanation is correct, then that's how it really happened. Allegorization can't change the ugly reality on the ground. It's just make-believe to say otherwise.
This is a useful window into the state of contemporary EO, at least among EO academics and intellectuals. I don't know how representative that is. Is this what's taught at St. Vladimir's Seminary?
But for people who convert to EO based on its image of unchanging truth, this rips off the mask.
"At last! A brilliant treatment—exegetically, theologically, and philosophically— of the promise that, in the end, all will indeed be saved, and exposing the inadequacy—above all moral—of claims to the contrary.”—John Behr, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary
Delete"You need to become Eastern Orthodox."
ReplyDeleteReally? Cause it sounds to me like Philo, Marcion, the Hebrew savages who walked around killing babies, Trump, Hitler, Paul, Derek and the chick who cursed the world with Fifty Shades of Grey are all going to the same place in the end.