Forging Ploughshares

Colossians 1:15-20 stands at the center of the logic of the New Testament, taken up by Origen, the Cappadocian Fathers, Maximus, and in the modern period is recovered by Robert Jenson (among others). Apart from this understanding, that Christ is the realization of the eternality of God, Christianity becomes unintelligible.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theologica...

Jordan Wood brings his series on Maximus to a conclusion, summing up his views on nature, hierarchy, and the possibility of annihilation.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Salvation: An in-depth study of the meaning of sin and a description of the atoneme...

David, Jonathan, and Paul in part 1 of this 2 part podcast discuss the novels and short stories of Flannery O'Connor and their challenge to a modern liberal worldview, with their portrayal of inexplicable evil and love. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Also sign up for Sin and Sa...

Jordan Wood describes key texts in patristics and philosophy and then describes the similarities between Hegel and Maximus. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here  https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org/offerings ) If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to sup...

Herod lied to the wisemen about his intent, pretending to want to worship Jesus, but slaughtered the innocent children of Bethlehem in an attempt to kill any rival. This provides a working principle for understanding the facade of piety among rulers and the powerful and how to understand the continued slaughter of the innocent in Palestine and elsewhere. It clarifies the mandate for the people of...

Jordan Wood leads a discussion on Maximus' view of the all-embracing and unbelievable love of God as the work being accomplished through the Trinity, in synthesis, personhood, and divine humility. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method." The course will run from the weeks of February 16th to April 11th.  Register here  https://pbi.forgingploughshares.org...

Mary consented to the formation of Christ within her womb, and Paul calls all people to consent to Christ being formed within. The other choice is bearing the subpersonal image. (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of the most pressing cha...

Jordan Wood explains Maximus' understanding of the limited role of nature in universal salvation, which unlike in David Hart's theology in which nature contains the full potential of deification and salvation, there is the necessity of realization in time and history of the actual working out of salvation and the defeat of evil beyond nature in personhood.  Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonerga...

The Lord's Prayer is answered by Christ in the incarnation and parallels and echoes the prayer of Mary and Zacharias as each of us become the bearers of the incarnate Christ through freely carrying out "Thy Will" in enacting the Kingdom of God on Earth.  Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the developme...

Jordan follows Maximus argument of deification to conclude that personhood, whether divine or human is not reducible or achievable apart from the reality of the person of Christ (in contradistinction from the work of David Bentley Hart's syllogistic understanding). (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see t...

Human conceptuality and understanding is limited by binaries, differences and irresolvable dualisms, but Paul describes the synthesizing work of Christ as a knowledge exceeding human conceptuality.  (Sign up for the upcoming class, "Lonergan & the Problem of Theological Method": "Bernard Lonergan, SJ (1904 - 1984) came to see the development of a modern scholarly method for theology as one of...

Jordan Wood lays out Maximus explanation of the Lord's Prayer, which not only explains how prayer can both seek action from God and change the one praying, but accords with the logic of creation as incarnation. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood addresses the determinate good and love of Christ, in contrast to abstractions, and addresses the Neo-Platonism of Hart and Milbank, and the true orthodoxy of Hegel, as opposed to the received neo-Kantianism of Lonergan. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

Jordan Wood, in part two of a three part series on Maximus' Mystagogia, describes the paradoxical relationship between church and world, soul and body, idealism and realism, the apophatic and cataphatic, and creation and incarnation, demonstrating that these independent realms are integrated and interdependent.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Pa...

In Romans 13:1, it was under the darkest of circumstances that Paul outlined the responsibility of Christians to the state. In light of the fact that Jesus has been slain and Paul himself will shortly be murdered, Christians can defeat the powers through the same revolutionary subordination, defeating death (the power of this world's kingdoms) and establishing a resurrection Kingdom through the pa...

Jordan Wood introduces the alternative logic of the incarnation in which the symbol is the symbolized, and usual modes of ordering cause and effect and time and eternity, the apophatic and cataphatic, or the Platonic and Aristotelian are surpassed.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The two on the Road to Emmaus, illustrate that the embodied, the fleshly, the historical, the scriptural is inadequate in recognizing Christ. To be stuck with the literal, which describes this theological/political moment in the United States, can be likened (according to Maximus and Origen) to being consumed by fleshly desire, while desire directed to God in Christ is infinitely stretched out. If...

Jordan Wood answers a series of questions concerning how Christ is to be conceived in regard to hierarchy, lower and higher, cause and effect, and Jordan depicts his embrace and occupation of the inside and outside of hierarchical order. He also discusses contemporary issues of biblical interpretation concerning the body and sexuality and how conscience and progress are to be applied to Bible read...

Christ precedes and makes possible the fact of Scripture, both in its writing and formation, but also in the continuing reading and exegesis of Scripture. This fact is the unifying center of the faith, in answer to the multiplicities of Christian faiths now exposed in this politic moment, pointing to a deep theological crisis. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our wo...

In this discussion of Maximus' paradoxical view of the space and time bending elements of the Word/Scripture as the continuation of incarnation, Scripture is set in the context of Christ as Word - the Word incorporating and incorporated into all things. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

This sermon on coming to Christ outside the city (Hebrews 13:12-14) traces the inevitable collapse of every civilization, and the attempt of Republican politicians such as JD Vance, Josh Hawley, and Donald Trump, and cultural warriors like Jordan Peterson and Peter Thiel, to weaponize Christianity to aid in civilizational war is equated with the offer of the Devil to Christ. This is a paraphrasing...

Maximus, unlike N. T. Wright or Peter Enns but like Origen and the Apostles, equates Scripture with the body, soul, and spirit of Christ, treating the inspiration of Scripture as continuing to occur through Christ, and not through the letter.  If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The logic of Christ defeats the necessary logic surrounding death, in which  life is fragmented and sequential in its beginning and end, but Christ's defeat of death introduces an order in which life reigns over death, and in this logic the life of Christ is an eternal reality, bringing together time and eternity, God and incarnation in a reciprocal relation in which beginning and end are united....

In this conclusion to part 4, Jordan takes on the scholastic notion that creation and incarnation are not a necessity, suggesting that such a notion leaves us with no particular understanding of God or his love. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider donating to support our work. Become a Patron!

The Gospel of John depicts a real world deliverance from fear, real world healing from sin and slavery, and this is captured in John's deployment of Passover and treatment of Isaiah and the Suffering Servant, in which human evil (not God) results in his suffering and God brings mercy and healing from out of his oppression. This stands in contrast to Calvin's depiction of God punishing Jesus becaus...