The biblical doctrine of creation and the Via

Moderna

The biblical doctrine of creation is unique; no religion other than those developed out of the biblical tradition contains anything like it. In the biblical doctrine God is completely discontinuous with the world. The world, on the other hand, is completely dependent on God; it continues to exist by his continuing will for it to exist. Its unity is in his will or purpose and not an intrinsic property. Its order is, therefore, in no way binding on God. The complete freedom of God with respect to the whole creation was a fundamental influence on late medieval thought. The doctrine of creation also, by its emphasis on the direct relationship of God to each creature, produced that awareness of reality that corresponded to and supported nominalism in medieval thought. The order of the world was not eternally inherent in it but was imposed on it from outside by the transcendent God. Particular creatures of God were neither universal nor necessary. Human knowledge of the world had, therefore, to be knowledge of particular creatures in a contingent and dynamic world, could not be deduced from universal cosmic truths, and could never arrive at absolute certainty. God’s relation to his creatures supported nominalism. It was a meaningful world, but it was absolutely subordinated to the free, creative action of God; it was God’s purposes that gave it meaning, for the world had no purpose of its own. It was an ordered world because God had ordered it, but the world’s order could be known only by observing to see how God had chosen to order it. The best of the fourteenth-century theologians and philosophers were pursuing the matter to the end, and the end was not a post-medieval emancipation from Christianity, but a Christian emancipation from Aristotle. The late scholastics concentrated on the problem of our knowledge of the world and in so doing they defined and refined that cast of mind which allowed the West, and only the West, to break through the closed systems of cosmological thought to the development of modern science. — Paraphrased from Willis B. Glover, Biblical Origins of Modern Secular Culture  - The Glover Thesis on the Origins of Modernity

Serious but not academic

The primary material here is essays and critical reviews. They are too long to fit on web pages, and are provided as linked PDF files. Today’s browsers can display PDF content, so it is not necessary to download the files and open them in a browser. Of course some will prefer to download them for future reference or even to print them out, another advantage of the PDF format. There are many sources of popular talks and essays that speak for various movements and personalities. Here you will find more serious, that is demanding, reading. But it is neither is it the sort of arcania that would be published in an academic journal. If there is something to be said for it, it is that it is different from what is coming from the various movements and schools of appologetics that attempt to speak for Christianity. It is different because of the conviction that something different needs to be said. The main interest of Via Moderna is the study of culture, which includes historical views, philosophical views, and the review of popular culture. I want to know how culture comes out of what people believe, and therefore reveals what it is that they really believe.

Culture and the study of culture should be enjoyable

Culture is fun and fun to read about, even the academic books, at least until the postmodern and then the woke joy-killers came along. But culture is also the arena of conflict. It aways was. This is very obvious now, when even the popular expression cancel culture makes it plain.

How we got here

The Via Moderna was highest achievement of the branch of medieval thought that rejected the Thomist Greek-Christian synthesis. It was set aside by early modern theologians in favor of rationalist alternatives that promised immanent certainty, but in the end discredited themselves.

Philosophy and theology

Essays and book reviews on historical and contemporary philosophical and theological topics. Historical Studies History is like testimony in court. It is told to make a case. But it also part of the mass media of textbook publishing, and the often ideology driven academic world. A history book has to be bought by libraries or adopted as a college text to make it into the cultural consciousness. The independent reviewer is critical to breaking through this control.

Law and Political Theory

The church under the papacy, and civil governments took form by asserting themselves through law, and early protestants took to legal theory to defend themselves against hostile regimes. Liberalism created itself through theories of law and rights.

Modernity

The trial of modernity – who or what is on trial? It is the contrived solutions of the past based on compromise and the synthesis of incompatible beliefs.