Scotus on the Incarnation

Click here for a post on Aquinas, Scotus and the incarnation from Christianity Today. The middle ages apparently aren't completely dead. [thanks to Crystal]

Update: Richard Rohr has an article on Huffpo, which is also on the incarnation. Except, the incarnation he is interested in is the big bang.

Here are a few choice quotes:

"The Incarnation of God did not happen in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. That is just when we started taking it seriously. The incarnation actually happened 14.5 billion years ago with a moment that we now call "The Big Bang." That is when God actually decided to materializeand to self expose."

[...]

I know it is no longer words, doctrines, and mental belief systems that can or will reveal the fullness of this Cosmic Christ. This earth indeed is the very Body of God, and it is from this body that we are born, live, suffer, and resurrect to eternal life. Either all is God's Great Project, or we may rightly wonder whether anything is God's Great Project. One wonders if we humans will be the last to accept this."

What does this have to do with Scotus? Well, he does come up:

Christ, for John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) was the very first idea in the mind of God, and God has never stopped thinking, dreaming, and creating the Christ. "The immense diversity and pluriformity of this creation more perfectly represents God than any one creature alone or by itself," adds Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) in his Summa Theologica(47:1).

He even quotes Scotus:

God remains in immediate sustaining attentiveness to everything that exists, precisely in its 'thisness.'" -- John Duns Scotus

I fail to see why we can't have doctrines and arguments and still take care of the earth, or "earth" as the haters of pronouns would have it. Can't say that I've ever seen Scotus say that Christ was the first divine idea, but I suppose that's not really the point; the quote from Scotus looks like it was translated by Matthew Fox. But hey, any publicity is good publicity. Perhaps now when the powers that be see Scotus on my CV or grant application they'll fork over the cash because they think he's just like them.

Hello, Fireman!

In times to come, your children may only faintly remember the bookstores of their early years, and your grandchildren will think of them as a quirk from your past. If I had a Facebook account, I would post this:

In light of the Borders bookstore Co. preparing to file bankruptcy, due in large part to Amazon.com sales and their Kindle gizmo, one fellow, who knows his stuff, said this:

"I think that there will be a 50% reduction in bricks-and-mortar shelf space for books within five years, and 90% within 10 years," says Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical Co., a New York consulting firm. "Book stores are going away."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704329104576138353865644420.html