The doctrine of original sin is foundational and essential to Western Christianity, although arguably of less importance to Eastern Orthodoxy. This paper shall show that (a) without it the whole of the economy of salvation of both Catholicism and Protestantism is rendered invalid; and (b) it is completely incompatible with what is known of human evolution, even as modified by so-called ‘polygenism’.

Thomas Malthus predicted that human population would always grow faster than food production, but the ‘Green Revolution’ of the 1960s appeared to disprove his thesis. Now anthropogenic climate change, with its adverse impacts on crop yields, the supply of water for irrigation, and the health and increased mortality of farm animals, is once again threatening to vindicate him, as human population grows from 8 billion now to an estimated 9.74 billion by 2050. Human-induced biodiversity loss is compounding this problem.

This paper will examine, briefly, the issue of the authorship and date of the Letter to the Ephesians, before subjecting Eph.2:2 to close analysis, asking what is meant by the Koiné Greek phrase archonta tēs exousias tou aeros, seeking to learn lessons from literature and comparative mythology regarding its symbolism, and then explaining the meaning of the phrase huiois tēs alētheias.

There is good news for Schrödinger’s famous (or infamous) feline: this paper shall show that he or she is not alive and dead whilst unobserved in his or her box, but alive or dead. All arguments to the contrary rest on an illegitimate confusion between ontology (the theory of being) and epistemology (the theory of knowledge).

Satan, the ‘ruler of the powers of the air’ of Ephesians 2:2, is undoubtedly the tragic hero (in the sense employed by Aristotle in his Poetics) of Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost. Blake, Byron and Shelley saw him quite differently, perceiving the heroism, but transforming the tragedy, and, instead of seeing hubris (‘overweening pride’), Promethean defiance, of which they fully approved.