Theology in the Flesh
Key ideas in my book Theology in the Flesh
Key ideas in my book Theology in the Flesh
If jellyfish worshipped God, their Nicene Creed would not say they “look forward” to the resurrection of the dead because their bodies lack fronts and backs. Nor would they speak of meeting “face to face” with God.
This talk uses cognitive linguistics which affirms the embodied mind approach gaining ground in cognitive science to consider natural kinds. The claim is that humans use a basic mental tool set grounded in our sensorimotor capacities to reason about entities we interact with in our environment. The specific nature of the human body is key to understanding how humans cognize. I will examine several of these tools and show how they are used to construe natural kinds as well as God.
From Homebrewed Christianity
Here is a fun example of how different languages can think about the same topic differently. Think for a moment about how English speakers understand the future in relation to our bodies. A parent may say to a child that “You have your entire future in front of you” and a commencement speaker tells the […]
Words are prompts or triggers for our minds to construct meaning. If someone says they are going to a wedding our minds furnish the event of a wedding lots of information about the rituals and dress of those involved. The same words may sometimes prompt different meanings depending upon the culture. For instance, take the […]
Words are prompts or triggers for our minds to construct meaning. If someone says they are going to a wedding our minds furnish the event of a wedding with lots of information about the rituals and dress of those involved. The same words may sometimes prompt different meanings depending upon the culture. For instance, take […]
It is common to believe that God “transcends” the sorts of limitations that we creatures have. We tend to think of God as above or beyond the created realm. The words “above” and “beyond” are common human spatial terms and are used to “elevate” the divine majesty. Some theologians use above and beyond to argue […]
The Bible contains over fifty different metaphors for understanding who God is and our relationship to God. Some of these are: husband, woman, shepherd, potter, bear, eagle, and rock. The metaphors structure how humans construe the types of relations and expected behaviors we have with God. For instance, thinking of God as a father involves […]
English has a number of ways to understand truth. We speak of “discovering,” “distorting,” or “twisting” the truth. This uses the truth is an object metaphor in which truth is a physical object that we can “grasp” and do things with. We also think of truth as a journey so that we pursue truth and […]
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The God Who Risks: A Theology of Divine ProvidenceMarch 14, 2016 - 7:35 pm
No Other Name: An Investigation into the Destiny of the UnevangelizedMarch 13, 2016 - 7:29 pm
What About Those Who Have Never Heard?March 12, 2016 - 5:25 pm