Category: Biblical Theology

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Hey friends — welcome back to the podcast. In this podcast series we are finding out that Traces of the Trinity are everywhere. If you’ve traveled with us so far, you know the drill: we’re following theologian Peter Leithart up this winding mountain path where the world’s everyday features — our bodies, our relationships, our words — all whisper a hidden shape: the triune shape of mutual indwelling.

Today, we step into Chapter 4 — and we’re turning our gaze to something we usually take for granted: time.

Leithart calls this one Presence of the Past.

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Time is slippery. Augustine¹Saint Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a Christian theologian, philosopher, and bishop of Hippo in North Africa, and one of the most influential figures in Western Christianity. After a restless youth, he converted to Christianity in 386 under the influence of St. Ambrose. His writings shaped Christian doctrine on grace, sin, free will, and the Trinity. Augustine’s most famous works include Confessions, a spiritual autobiography; The City of God, a vision of history shaped by the love of God; and On the Trinity. Blending classical philosophy with biblical faith, Augustine profoundly influenced medieval theology, the Protestant Reformers, and Western thought as a whole. once said, “I know what time is — until someone asks me.” Then it slips through his fingers.

We live inside time. We watch it tick by on screens and clocks. But do we ever really see it?

Leithart says: look again. Because if you pay attention, even time reveals the same strange pattern — inside and outside, past and future, all tangled up inside the present.

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Here’s the classic problem. The past? It’s gone — right? I am no longer the child obsessed with football, no longer the teen at my first job. That version of me doesn’t exist anymore. The past is memory.

The future? That doesn’t exist either — not yet. It’s all possibility. Plans, hopes, fears — but they’re not real today.

So what do we have? We have now. But here’s Augustine’s puzzle: as soon as you name the present, it vanishes. It’s swallowed by the past. The present is a knife edge — and it’s gone before you can point at it.

So how does this fragile sliver hold our lives together?

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Leithart says: it does — because the past and future don’t just hover outside the present. They dwell inside it.

Think about it: you remember what you did this morning. (At least I hope you do.) You remember your childhood. Those memories live in you. They shape you. They are you, in part.

And the future? It leaks into now, too. You’re listening to this podcast probably because you hope to learn something, to grow, to reach some future you want. Deadlines push us. Dreams pull us. Futures shape the present.

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Leithart borrows an idea from Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy²Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy (1888–1973) was a German social philosopher, historian, and Christian thinker known for his emphasis on speech, community, and historical transformation. Trained in law and history, he rejected purely abstract philosophy in favor of a dialogical, lived understanding of reality, arguing that human life is shaped by command, response, and shared language. After emigrating to the United States in the 1930s, he taught at Harvard and later at Dartmouth College. His major works, including Out of Revolution and Speech and Reality, explore how language, faith, and social order arise through historical crises and renewal.— a quirky name, but worth remembering. Rosenstock-Huessy said that time isn’t just clock ticks on a wall. Real time is shaped by what fills it.

A basketball game has its own time — the “time of the game” isn’t just minutes. It’s the drama, the rush, the roar of the crowd.

A classroom has its own time — the old knowledge of the teacher meets the fresh curiosity of students. Past and future collide in the present moment of teaching.

History itself works this way. We speak of “the Victorian Age,” “the Reformation,” “the Digital Era.” These aren’t just dates — they’re times-with-shape, where past, present, and future press into each other.

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So look around your life. You’re surrounded by traces of the past. The buildings in your town — someone built them decades ago. That chair you’re sitting in? Designed, carved, assembled long before you sat down. Your own body bears scars, moles, wrinkles — little footprints of time.

The future lives here too. Maybe you wear a ring, a sign of promises made long ago that bind you now and propel you ahead. Maybe you’re studying for a test or saving for a trip. The future inhabits your present — just like the past.

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Leithart says: this is the same Möbius twist we’ve seen all along. Things that are separate actually dwell in one another. Just as your body is not sealed off from the world but porous — so time is not chopped into neat slices. It’s a swirl.

Without memory, there is no now. Without anticipation, there is no present action. The past makes sense only because it lives on in us. The future only matters because it reaches back to tug at our now.

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And here’s the deep point: time’s dance of mutual indwelling points us to the Triune God.

For Christians, God is not frozen above time, untouched and unmoved. He steps into time — in Christ, in history, in the Spirit who inhabits every moment.

And the Trinity itself is a dance of eternity — Father, Son, and Spirit indwelling, pouring life into each other without beginning or end. The shape of time echoes the shape of the Trinity — difference united, separate yet together, all folded into a living story.

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So, what do we do with this?

For starters, we can stop fearing time. We live in an age obsessed with youth, terrified of aging. We chase anti-wrinkle creams and digital illusions of forever. But Leithart says: what if change is not our enemy? What if time’s passage is gift — a pattern that invites us to live inside the dance?

We don’t have to run from the past. We don’t have to fear the future. The Triune God holds both — and holds us inside it.

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So today — maybe pay attention to time in a new way. Notice the memories that rise when you see an old photo. Notice how a plan for tomorrow shapes your choices now.

Remember: past and future aren’t enemies of the present. They’re the frame that makes now possible. And all of it — all this swirl — is a whisper that we live inside a world shaped by the Trinity.

Next time, we’ll see how this pattern seeps into something else we take for granted: language. But until then — may you find the traces of the Triune dance in every tick of the clock, every scar on your skin, every hope that wakes you up in the morning.

The Trinity leaves fingerprints on every inch of creation.

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Next Episode (5) – Word in Word in World.

Traces of the Trinity: Word in Word in World

I welcome any questions or comments. [Don’t worry, your personal info will not be given to anyone.] Thanks!

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Hey friends — welcome back to the podcast about Traces of the Trinity.

If you’re just jumping in — here’s your heads up: this episode steps into the realm of love, bodies, sex — and how all that messy, beautiful stuff actually whispers a deeper pattern about reality. So buckle up — this might get awkward. Or it might just be the best thing you hear all week.

Today, we open up Peter Leithart’s Chapter 3 —I Am His, He Is Mine.

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When we talk about sex in our modern world, it often gets sliced up two ways. Some people crack open an anatomy book — describing all the moving parts. Others — poets, lovers, mystics — reach for a different language. They use metaphor, music, laughter, blushes.

Leithart says — the poets are onto something. Because when a man and woman become “one flesh,” as Genesis says, they do something far more mysterious than biology alone can explain.

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Think about it: for centuries, lovers have reached for poetry to describe what happens in sex. Shakespeare called it the “beast with two backs.”  Andrew Marvell spoke of rolling all strength and sweetness up into one ball. William Blake asked what men and women truly want — and he answered: “The lineaments of Gratified Desire.”

It’s not just earthy poets. Mystics — Christian, Jewish, Eastern — often turn to the same language when trying to describe what it means to long for God. Song of Songs paints a picture of human lovers — but beneath that heat and longing is a deeper ache: the soul longing for the divine.

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Karl Barth — the Swiss theologian — said that the difference between male and female is the part of humanity that most deeply reflects God. Because in that difference — and in their union — we glimpse a hint of the Trinity’s life: difference without division, unity without erasure.

The old word for that is perichoresis — mutual indwelling.

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And here’s the bold claim: sex is not just physical release. It’s not just pleasure or “exchanging fluids,” as the clinical talk goes. It’s not just biology. It’s a sign — a sign that actually does what it points to.

When a man and woman come together, they quite literally enter one another’s lives — bodies first, but hearts too. He wraps his arms around her; she folds herself into him. They breathe together, kiss together — two becoming one, yet remaining two.

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Leithart goes deeper. Think about a kiss — just a kiss. Not just a peck on the cheek — but an open-mouth, breath-sharing kiss. It’s intimate, invasive, mutual. Your lips touch. Your breath mingles. You taste each other. You’re sharing life at the gateway of the body.

The mouth is a door — things go in: food, drink, air. Things come out: words, songs, sighs, laughter. The mouth is a threshold where what’s inside becomes outside — and what’s outside becomes inside.

A kiss, then, is a small version of what happens in sex: a mutual opening, a giving and receiving, a little liturgy of indwelling.

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Now, some might say: “Hold on — that’s just animal stuff. Birds do it, bees do it. Even educated fleas do it.”¹Hat tip to song writer Cole Porter But humans are not just animals. We blush. We hide. We veil. We make it private. We wrap sex in poetry, vows, laughter, tears.

Animals don’t write love songs. They don’t close the bedroom door. They don’t feel shame.

That shame points to something bigger: that our sexuality is not just about pleasure — but about communion, about self-gift, about vulnerability that echoes the mystery of our Creator.

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Leithart reminds us — this union is also the way the world gets peopled. No other human act is so intimately unitive and so profoundly creative. Other pleasures don’t make new life. But this one can — and does.

Through mutual indwelling, two become one — and out of that oneness, a third can come into being. A new person, born from the overflow of mutual gift.

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But the point isn’t just babies. It’s that the pattern is baked into the act itself — bodies are designed to fit together. It’s not an accident. It’s gift, echo, hint. It’s a physical sign of a deeper reality: that true love wants not just pleasure — but to dwell inside and be dwelled in.

Romantic love wants more than bodies pressed together — it wants stories woven together. It wants a life shared, a world reshaped by a vow.

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Leithart says: lovers don’t just merge bodies — they merge narratives. He tells how when you fall in love, your life story rewrites itself around the other. Your past, your dreams, your friendships — they all get re-colored. The beach where you honeymooned. The restaurant where you first confessed you were in love. These places get wrapped up in the shared story.

And if you’ve ever lost a spouse, or watched someone grieve — you know it’s true. When one partner dies, it’s like losing a piece of yourself. Because that other person was part of you.

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Of course, there’s a dark side too. This longing for indwelling can twist into domination. Love can curdle into possession — one person devouring another’s identity. It’s the tragic side of romance: instead of a dance, it becomes control.

True love holds the tension: mutual giving without erasing the other. Lovers “ingest” without “digesting” — they remain themselves, but they dwell in one another, too.

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So, why does this matter for Leithart’s bigger argument? Because it’s yet another trace. Another clue that the world is stitched together with a triune shape.

Sex is more than sex. It’s a signpost, a sacrament — a bodily icon that points us back to the One whose very life is mutual indwelling, self-gift, other-receiving. Father in Son, Son in Father, both in Spirit.

So the next time the world tries to reduce sex to a transaction or just biology — pause. Remember that blush. Remember the veil. Remember the poetry.

Remember that you are built for more — your body testifies that love was always meant to be mutual self-gift. A little earthly echo of a cosmic dance.

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Next time, we’ll see how this pattern doesn’t stop with lovers. It shapes our sense of time — and even the way we speak and think. But for now, maybe take a moment to remember the gift of bodies, the mystery of desire, the wonder that when we say I am his, he is mine — we’re pointing to something deeper than flesh.

Until next time — keep your eyes open for the traces. They’re everywhere, even in the most private places.

The Trinity leaves fingerprints on every inch of creation.

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4: The Presence of the Past – (Episode 4)

Traces of the Trinity: Presence of the Past

I welcome any questions or comments. [Don’t worry, your personal info will not be given to anyone.] Thanks!

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Welcome back to the podcast where we are discussing the book Traces of the Trinity by Peter Leithart. I’m glad you’re here — because this time, we’re following Peter Leithart into something that hits closer to home than a window or a coffee mug. This episode is all about us — people, families, friendships — and what they reveal about the deep pattern of reality.

The title for Chapter 2 says it perfectly: Like Father, Like Son.

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Loneliness — it’s everywhere today. Leithart pulls no punches: modern life, for all its perks, often leaves us alone. We move away from family. We trade roots for freedom. We stand under a big, empty sky — unanchored.

The ancient saints knew solitude — think hermits in deserts, monks in cells — but they didn’t call that loneliness. Loneliness is the ache of disconnection, the hollow echo that something’s missing.

Modern thinkers like Hobbes¹Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) An English philosopher and political theorist, Hobbes is best known for Leviathan, in which he argued that in a state of nature human life would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” To escape violent chaos, Hobbes maintained that individuals rationally consent to strong sovereign authority through a social contract. His thought laid foundations for modern political philosophy and debates about authority, security, and human nature. and Locke²John Locke (1632–1704). An English philosopher and political thinker, Locke is a central figure of liberal political theory and empiricism. In his Two Treatises of Government, he argued that individuals possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property, and that governments exist to protect these rights with the consent of the governed. Locke also shaped modern epistemology through An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, influencing democratic governance, religious toleration, and Enlightenment thought. told us humans are basically solitary by default — lonely mushrooms that sprout up out of the earth, and only later make contracts and form societies. They imagined we start off alone, and society is tacked on later, like optional furniture, or something.

But Leithart says — look closer. That’s not how we come into the world at all.

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How did you get here? Not alone, that’s for sure. You started inside another human being — your mother. Your first home was literally another person’s body. And before you were there, Mom and Dad came together in a moment of intimate indwelling that gave you life.

From the very beginning, we’re social creatures. We’re in others, and they’re in us. You were shaped by your mother’s voice, her moods, her body nourishing yours. And Mom was shaped by you — the kicks, the cravings, the curve of her belly. The dance starts before we take our first breath.

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And it doesn’t stop when we’re born. We soak up our family’s habits — how they speak, what they find funny, what they fear. Even our quirks: the “Um” before we answer a question, the laugh, the gestures — all borrowed, passed down like heirlooms. We’re echoes of our parents and siblings, even when we think we’re original.

Leithart uses thinkers like David Hume³David Hume (1711–1776). A Scottish Enlightenment philosopher and historian, Hume was a leading empiricist and skeptic. He argued that human knowledge arises from sensory experience rather than innate ideas, famously critiquing causation, induction, and miracles. His major works include A Treatise of Human Nature and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Hume’s thought profoundly influenced modern philosophy, especially epistemology and philosophy of religion., Rousseau⁴Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778).  A Genevan philosopher and writer of the Enlightenment, Rousseau emphasized the natural goodness of humanity and the corrupting influence of society. His political philosophy, articulated in The Social Contract, introduced the concept of the general will and deeply shaped modern democratic thought. His works on education (Émile) and autobiography (Confessions) also transformed views of selfhood, freedom, and authenticity., and René Girard⁵René Girard (1923–2015). A French historian, literary critic, and social theorist, Girard developed the influential theory of mimetic desire, arguing that human desire is shaped by imitation and leads to rivalry and violence. He proposed that societies stabilize themselves through scapegoating mechanisms, a process exposed and overturned by the biblical revelation. Girard’s major works include Deceit, Desire, and the Novel and Violence and the Sacred. His interdisciplinary thought has impacted theology, anthropology, literary studies, and social theory. to show how our desires, too, are contagious. We want what others want. We imitate loves and hatreds. We “catch” desires like a yawn or a laugh. We’re constantly mirroring.

So while modern theory loves the image of the lone, self-made individual — the reality is more like a woven fabric. Each life is a thread in a living tapestry. We exist by indwelling one another.

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This shapes how we think about groups, too. Family, church, even a sports team — these aren’t just random clusters of individuals. They’re living bodies where each part affects the rest. A leader, for example, isn’t just a person over a group — their presence, their character, filters through the whole network, like nerves running through a body.

Leithart calls this a clue: we don’t just stand next to each other — we live in each other. And if we really get that, then society isn’t just a contract we sign. It’s a web of mutual indwelling.

Sound familiar? That word again — perichoresis. Mutual indwelling is the heartbeat of the Trinity — the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father, the Spirit binding all in perfect communion. And if we’re made in that image, no wonder our life together hums with the same pattern.

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So here’s where this hits us today: you can’t be you, fully you, without others. And they can’t be who they are without you. Our families shape our voice, our laugh, our loves. Even our hidden wounds often bear someone else’s fingerprints.

So when you see a family resemblance — the father’s grin in the son, the mother’s wit in the daughter — you’re seeing more than biology. You’re seeing a whisper of the deep reality that holds the world together: we were made to indwell and be indwelled. Like Father, like Son — and like the Son, like the Father.

Next time, we’ll push deeper. We’ll see how this pattern plays out when we talk about love, romance, and bodies that mingle and give life. For now — maybe notice the little echoes in your own life. The phrases you repeat, the stories you carry, the traits you inherited without trying.

We’re not islands. We’re networks. And maybe — just maybe — these connections are faint tracings of the Triune dance.

The Trinity leaves fingerprints on every inch of creation.

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3: Traces of the Trinity: I Am His, He Is Mine.

Traces of the Trinity: I Am His, He Is Mine

I welcome any questions or comments. [Don’t worry, your personal info will not be given to anyone.] Thanks!