Nathaniel Turner's Blog, page 4
February 13, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 16: The Sacraments: The Eucharist (Part One)
Tell me the story again
Tell me the story again
A Child in a manger bed
See the Virgin smile, for she understoodNow grow up and break your bread
– Chris Rice, “Tell Me the Story Again”
Pour your cup of wine
On a cross of wood
A cross of wood
A cross of woodThe faithful, incorporated in the Church through baptism, are destined toward the cultivation of the Christian religion by its character and, regenerated into sons of God, they are bound to profess, in the presence of men, the faith that...
February 9, 2017
Romans 10
1Brothers, the good will of my heart and the petition of God over them [is]some manuscripts: over them is; others: over Israel is until salvation. 2For [I] witness to them that [they] have jealousy(zeal) of God,a but not according to(in accordance with) knowledge; 3for, not perceiv...
February 6, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 15: The Sacraments: Confirmation
To be honest, I don’t have a lot to say about confirmation. It’s one of the three rites of Christian initiation (the other two being baptism and the Eucharist), which means it’s integral to unity with the universal Church, but I can’t recall thinking of any particular controversy around it. Perhaps I just didn’t run in the right circles.
To that end, this week’s post is pretty short. (No, I’m not done with it quite yet; calm down.) I’ll just do a quick run-down of confirmation–how it looks an...
January 30, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 14: The Sacraments: Baptism (Part Two)
Last week, I talked about how the purpose and effect of baptism is to forgive sins and unite the believer to the Body of Christ (as opposed to merely signifying a declaration of faith on the part of a person old enough to make such a decision).
This week, I’m going to tackle the second point of contention: when to baptize somebody.
As a Baptist, I always had a ready answer to the question of infant baptism: “It’s not Scriptural!” Indeed, infant baptism is never mentioned explicitly in Scriptu...
January 23, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 13: The Sacraments: Baptism (Part One)
There are, generally speaking, two primary points of contention regarding baptism: (1) when to do it, and (2) what it’s for. That may sound like just about everything, but at least I don’t have to argue that we should do it–that much should be obvious (Matthew 28:19-20).
I grew up in the Baptist tradition, which means that my answers to the above issues were (1) upon or beyond the age of accountability (or age of reason), usually five to eight years old (depending on the child), and when the...
January 16, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 12: That Death May Die
My original plan for this series had me moving directly into a discussion of the sacraments. I assumed everyone would be on the same page as me by this point, but it occurred to me more recently that views on original sin are inconsistent. Personally, my view did not change between the first time I learned of the topic, when I was Protestant, and now; thus, as a chronicle of my own journey, this series did not need a post dealing directly with the question of original sin.
But, I decided, as...
January 14, 2017
A War’s Beginning
Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I enjoyed this, which I think is the point. But I also spent a lot of time not sure how to feel about it.
First, the most jarring thing for the average reader: present-tense storytelling. Mr. Kloos uses the method effectively, I think, because the story keeps you engaged, even when it’s not an action sequence, and you aren’t dragged in and out of the story’s pacing when we do enter an action sequence. But when you flip open the book a...
January 9, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 11: The Virtus in Virginity
The English word “virtue” comes from Latin virtus, literally “manliness.” Of course, in ancient philosophy, there was a transition from simple “manliness” to real virtue (like those I discussed a couple of weeks ago), and then deeper, more complex transitions over time to arrive at the wide range of modern views on virtue and ethics.
But as George Orwell and anyone who has sought to change terms (gender-neutral nouns and pronouns especially, such as “chairperson” or the intentional abandonmen...
January 2, 2017
Swimming the Tiber 10: Judging Your Sins
Happy new year! I’m not going to talk about New Year’s resolutions, I promise. (Well, at least not outside that sentence.)
Last week, I talked about virtue and vice from the perspective of Catholic philosophy; the week before, I talked about how we are justified and, more crucially related to this topic, how sin and salvation interact. Please keep both topics in mind going forward.
When I was younger, I had a particularly egalitarian view of sin. Basically, I told myself that all sins are com...
December 26, 2016
Swimming the Tiber 9: Virtue and Vice in Catholic Philosophy
Merry Christmas! I hope this Christmas season is a joyous one. Now, on to your regularly scheduled program.
But now, if, in all this talk, we both inquired and were speaking beautifully, excellence would be neither by nature nor taught, but coming to [men] by divine lot, without sense [for those] to whom it comes.
– Socrates in Plato’s Meno (my translation)And if [things are] thus, the human good comes about as an activity of a soul according to excellence–and if, rather, [there are] excelle...