Quodlibet
The Second Iteration
by Donald T. Williams
"Et iterum venturus est"; "And he shall come again." —The Nicene Creed
There are lots of things God does that are worth doing again: sunrises, sunsets, seasons. He is faithful and consistent, and they do not fail. He is also infinitely creative, so each one is new and different, and they never get old. He repeats, but he is not repetitive. (There is a lesson here for human artists: mere novelty is not really all that creative.)
This pattern will reach its climax in the second iteration of the Coming of his Son. That is something to ponder.
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
32.1—January/February 2019
Divine Love & the Love of Man & Woman Surpass Mere Consent by Anthony Esolen
33.4—July/August 2020
Our Views on the President Are Not Crucial by S. M. Hutchens
32.6—November/December 2019
The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis by Alan Jacobs by Jesse Russell
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
