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Culture
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Why No One Cares About Your Degree Anymore (And What to Do About It)

Social media and AI have reshaped the landscape of expertise, making traditional credentials less influential. The real challenge isn’t that people are always wrong—it’s that...

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Bibliology
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As If You Haven’t Had Enough: The Analogia Scripturae and Apostolic Understanding

Did the apostles fully understand everything they wrote, or did divine inspiration outpace their comprehension? This post explores *analogia scripturae*—Scripture interpreting...

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Bibliology
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Did the Gospel Writers Fully Understand Everything They Wrote?—Maybe We Should Abandon Authorial Intent Hermeneutics

Did the Gospel writers fully understand everything they wrote? This post explores analogia scripturae, authorial intent, and whether Scripture unfolds its meaning over...

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Church History
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Who is NOT Who in Church History: John of Cornwall

Lesser-Known Figures in the History of Christianity John of Cornwall (c. 1176) – Theologian, Scholar, and Defender of Christ’s Humanity If you’ve never heard of John of...

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Christian Life
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The War Inside: The Tension Between Legalism and License

The Battle for the Middle It is so easy to become a legalist. Even when you come out of such, you can slip back into it in so many ways. The craving for structure, the comfort...

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Credo House Ministries
Christian Life
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“I’ll Praise You in This Storm”: Finding God Through Pain and Recovery

I wanted to write sooner—to update you, to process—but fear (and writer’s block) held me back. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of being honest about what the recovery process has...

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Discipleship
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We Are All Only Armchair Theologians

Even the greatest theologians—giants like Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin—only knew a sliver of the truth. Compared to God’s infinite wisdom, our knowledge is infinitesimal....

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Protestantism
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Partim-Partim vs Material Sufficiency or ‘Why You May Not Be Able to Corner Your Catholic Friend’

Have You Ever Talked Theology with a Roman Catholic? As a Protestant, you might have found yourself frustrated in such conversations. When you ask a Catholic where a...

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Apologetics
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Why Christianity Had Everything Stacked Against It—And Still Survived

Christianity is unlike any other religion, rooted in public, historical events witnessed by many, making its claims uniquely verifiable.

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Theology Unplugged

Theology Unplugged
Theology Unplugged

Get your weekly dose of one of the longest-running theology podcasts there is.

86. Through Theology in a Year: Biblical Docetism
byC. Michael Patton

In this episode, Michael introduces a new term for an old interpretive problem: Biblical Docetism. Borrowing from the ancient Christological heresy of Docetism—which denied the true humanity of Christ while affirming His deity—Michael argues that many Christians approach the Bible in a remarkably similar way. They affirm the divine origin of Scripture but neglect its genuinely human character, treating the Bible as though it simply dropped from heaven rather than being written through real authors in real historical contexts.

Michael explores how this tendency manifests itself in everyday Bible study. Whether it is randomly opening the Bible to see what God has to say, assuming every verse applies directly to us, searching for hidden meanings and secret codes, neglecting the personalities of the biblical writers, or ignoring literary genre and historical context, these approaches often bypass the human element of Scripture altogether. The result is a view of the Bible that functions more like a magical object than a divine-human book.

Along the way, Michael examines a variety of common hermeneutical mistakes that arise from this perspective, including over-literalization, misunderstanding progressive revelation, treating chapter and verse divisions as inspired, and assuming that everything recorded in Scripture is therefore endorsed by Scripture. He argues that many of these errors stem from the same underlying problem: an inability to appreciate the role of the human authors in the process of inspiration.

Ultimately, Michael contends that a faithful doctrine of Scripture must mirror a faithful doctrine of Christ. Just as Christ is fully God and fully man, Scripture is both divine and human. To neglect either dimension is to distort the nature of God’s revelation. Understanding this balance not only protects us from interpretive errors but also helps us hear more clearly what God intended to communicate through the human authors He inspired.

Get involved:
Michael’s public blog: https://credohouse.org
Courses and Manuscript Reproductions from Michael and other scholars: https://credocourses.com
Join us as we go through the great Fathers of the Faith in a year: https://throughthechurchfathers.com
Support me and get A LOT more stuff from C. Michael Patton: https://patreon.com/cmichaelpatton

86. Through Theology in a Year: Biblical Docetism
86. Through Theology in a Year: Biblical Docetism
2026-06-16
C. Michael Patton
85. Through Theology in a Year: Can Scripture Mean More Than Its Author Intended?
2026-06-11
C. Michael Patton
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  • 86. Through Theology in a Year: Biblical Docetism 2026-06-16
    In this episode, Michael introduces a new term for an old interpretive problem: Biblical Docetism. Borrowing from the ancient Christological heresy of Docetism—which denied the true humanity of Christ while affirming His deity—Michael argues that many Christians approach the Bible in a remarkably similar way. They affirm the divine origin of Scripture but neglect its […]
  • 85. Through Theology in a Year: Can Scripture Mean More Than Its Author Intended? 2026-06-11
    In this episode, Michael explores one of the most fascinating questions in biblical interpretation: Can Scripture mean more than its human author intended? If God is the ultimate Author of Scripture, is it possible for Him to communicate truths that transcend the conscious awareness of the biblical writers while remaining faithful to their intended meaning? […]

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