David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

Philosopher & A̶s̶s̶o̶c̶i̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶D̶e̶a̶n̶ @UNC School for Civic Life & Leadership. Ethics, religion, & politics. Academic freedom. RT≠endorse; opinions own daviddecosimo.com Durham Joined July 2020

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

5 hours ago

@_wereback If you have only read the Confessions & not read his more systematic theological work you might draw that false conclusion. But Augustine is very explicit in, eg, “On Merit and the Forgiveness of Sins, and the Baptism of Infants” that newborns cannot commit actual sin:

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

9 hours ago

I’ve been watching with increasing disbelief as Stone has advanced ever more unhinged & indefensible views related to kids & church. The claim that newborns do not only bear original sin but commit actual sin is bonkers & close to universally rejected across Christian traditions.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

7 hours ago

@_wereback No, it is not. Pets are corrected or rebuked but do not sin. So too infants. Augustine does not hold that newborn infants commit actual sin & that is not what he is claiming in such passages. Newborns lack the volitional & rational capacity for sin, full stop.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

7 hours ago

@_wereback That’s not an affirmation of actual, personal sin but the inheritance of original sin.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

8 hours ago

If the passage you cited meant what you have said it does re kids in worship (it does not), it would also, necessarily, mean that kids, including newborns, must receive communion & that failure to give them communion (eg by requiring discernment as you do) was sinful. Indeed, denying newborns communion would be the very worst thing you could do. Simply put, there’s no principled way for you to get what you want & claim to get from the passage without also taking on the view that newborns should be given communion, which you denied . That’s the inconsistency. But it also exemplifies the highly idiosyncratic, eisegetical way in which you are approaching the overall issue & the text. You quite obviously bring as many (or more) assumptions to bear on the topic as those you criticize, yet unlike them, you deny that you are doing so & fail to take responsibility for those various commitments or the ways in which other passages & consideration are clearly shaping your views, even as you want to foreclose that for those you criticize, who are at least honest that multiple passages & theological consideration are at play with this matter. You simply foist a host of preconceived commitments onto the ‘let the children come to me” passage, deny you are doing so, & insist it says what it obviously does not.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

Moracco vs. Netherlands, easily the best game of this World Cup so far!

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

!!!!!!🇲🇦⚽️🇲🇦!!!!!!

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

@freganmitts @lymanstoneky That may be true for some, but not for all. It’s his patent inconsistency in regard to, eg, paedocommunion, his entirely over the top condemnation of countless Christians, & his wild claim that his own words are the very words of Christ.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

At least @Columbia job applicants can know that if you don't share this person's politics, he'll vote against your hire no matter how excellent your scholarship or outstanding your teaching. And you can know this is what the rest of their history department selects for.

Samyak Ghosh 🌈 @GhoshSamyak

3 days ago

Sorry, i refuse to take any historian seriously whose work doesn’t have any bearing on the present. There’s no point being an archive rat and recovering xyz histories when the world is being burned to ashes by nefarious forces. In other words, good history is always political!

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

@lymanstoneky So your view really is eisegesis all the way down. None of this substantiates what you claimed & it's not close. Indeed, *even on your own eisegetical terms* you'd be obliged to have baptized infants take Eucharist, lest 'a millstone be tied to your neck.' Yet you reject that.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

@lymanstoneky I have genuinely appreciated your insights on various matters over the years, but this is truly an unhinged response. Aside from claiming that your own words are Christ's, you compare parents who utilize nursery at church to "slaveholders who didn't think slavery was a sin."

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a day ago

You are very clearly substituting your own highly contestable views for the words of Scripture, and you are even going so far as to claim that your own words are the very words of Jesus. Jesus commands us: "let the little children come to him & do not hinder them." He does not say exactly what that means, let alone pronounce on the precise elements that should comprise Sunday worship (!). Even something like infant baptism, which I believe is essential & correct, is not something Jesus explicitly addresses - as nice as it would be if he did. How much more is that true of what level of comprehension, if any, is needed for the baptized to rightly receive Eucharist or the idea that general confession and absolution are to be an element of weekly worship. Anyone who knows Scripture or even a bit of church history knows that everything after the colon in your tweet is not Jesus. It's you, Lyman Stone. Indeed, it's your tradition's particular interpretation of matters that have divided Christians for many centuries (e.g. whether kids should receive Eucharist immediately after baptism etc.). It seems very strange for a Lutheran to play so fast and lose with what Scripture - let alone Jesus himself - actually does and does not explicitly say.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

5 days ago

@JamesWHankins1 Most of the attempted examples below make the very silly mistake of thinking that understanding a text in its context somehow entails thinking that the text cannot address universal or transcendent themes.

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

5 days ago

@JamesWHankins1 This is correct. The insistence that knowledge of context is always unnecessary when it comes to understanding great texts is lazy, genuinely anti-intellectual dogma. It’s also an excuse for lack of learnedness & lack of due attention to serious, historically informed scholarship

David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

a week ago

On the debate about great books & secondary lit or expertise, both sides are right. For most classics, it’s possible to have rich, even transformative reading & discussion without secondary lit & with a good teacher who lacks much contextual knowledge, let alone expertise. BUT…

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David Decosimo @DavidDecosimo

5 days ago

@TexasPreacher If this were correct, it would be sinful for the apostles to remember Jesus (!), moreover their participation relative to the composition of the Gospels or epistles would be sinful.