Category: Evangelical Calvinist

Dr. Craig Carter continues to promote the Christian Aristotelian/Thomist theologies of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession of Faith, with particular focus on their respective doctrines of God. He just tweeted the following: If someone tells you that God has passions, remember that to say that is to go against the teaching of our reformed confessions. Presbyterians & Reformed Baptists cannot go there. “There is but one only living & true God, a most pure spirit, invisible without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute, working…

Here is John Calvin commenting on Colossians 1:15: The sum is this — that God in himself, that is, in his naked majesty, is invisible, and that not to the eyes of the body merely, but also to the understandings of men, and that he is revealed to us in Christ alone, that we may behold him as in a mirror. For in Christ he shews us his righteousness, goodness, wisdom, power, in short, his entire self. We must, therefore, beware of seeking him elsewhere, for everything that would set itself off as a representation of God, apart from Christ,…

I am still a doctrinal (fundamentalist) evangelical in many ways. On a doctrine of biblical inerrancy: I am so committed to the intent that “inerrancy” intends to communicate that I’m beyond an inerrantist. My view of Scripture is “contexted” Christologically and thus soteriologically such that any type of abstract philosophical frame for a doctrine of inerrancy simply will not do. My view is confessional and even via antiqua, as I see an ontology of Holy Scripture funded protologically by God’s free election to be for the world in Jesus Christ. In a theological taxis then, my doctrine of Scripture has…

Here’s a post I found in my drafts from 2013, not sure if I ever posted this. Election. Election has been such a source of consternation for so many of us through our own theological years. The battle continues to fray on and on between the rascally classical Calvinists and Arminians—at least in its most popular expression—there is a trading of proof texts that sail right past each other as two ships in the dark navigate precariously past one another. There is a more sophisticated way to engage with this tumultuous topic. I like to think that Myk Habets and…

It’s better to know God in the way that He has deigned to be known. He has freely chosen to be known through men’s (Prophets and Apostles) voices, and not His voice directly (like audibly per se). Even as He came to us in the Son, He came as a human being; the human being par excellence. But still, He accommodates to speak to us, to reveal Himself to us, in a man’s voice, a human’s voice; albeit the Godman’s voice. The person we finally encounter in the Man, Christ Jesus’ voice, is the person of the triune God; nevertheless,…

A housekeeping note: most likely, unless I post a re-post, my forthcoming posts for the foreseeable future will be shorter than normal. I am still going through some heavy spiritual battle, that is also producing heavy mental anguish, and so that has been affecting my output here, as well as in other areas of life. For that I would appreciate continued prayer, that the Lord would see fit to release me from this current struggle, and provide that type of “new day” for me in Him. Anyway, that’s what you can expect for the near future. Shorter posts that attempt…

I thought this quote, while speaking to another issue (Barth and Balthasar’s disagreement over key theological points), is apropos in regards to how Protestant Christians approach the scriptures, interpretively. It is interesting that we can look at the same scriptures, and come to such different conclusions — on certain points of dogma and theological emphasis. This quote from Balthasar (quoting something else, see the biblio info) helps state the reality of this conundrum: The battle is so serious because neither side can seriously deny that it is really the same object we refer to, but at the same time we can find no way…

The thing about being a co-heir with Christ is that you are not looked upon as a mere instrument in God’s hand anymore than the Son is. That is, you aren’t simply some dispensable tool the Lord uses and tosses away. No, He has adopted us into His very life, by grace; such that when we suffer, He first suffered for us; when we are in turmoil, He first was in turmoil for us; when we die, He first died for us; when He first resurrected and ascended, we now too will resurrect and ascend to be with Him forevermore….

The following comes from a post I wrote on August 13th, 2012 that I posted at another (now defunct) blog of mine. It was in response to another blogger’s series of posts on theological exegesis (he is a biblical studies guy). The following was a comment on one of his posts engaging with someone else in that thread. I still like most of what I wrote here. One thing I would add is that I think all of the Literary, Grammatical, Historical tools can and ought to be deployed, even within the Christological exegetical approach I am describing below. In…

The following is a repost from September 25, 2018. It is this kind of thinking that moved me from a premillennial understanding of the last times, to an amillennial perspective (although I still retain the right to a historic premillennial perspective depending on the moment). The following post sounds like I have no interest or time for paying attention to geo-political and theopolitical trends as those might or might not pertain to God’s inbreaking into the world in an end times type of way. I am a futurist, I think you have to be because Jesus was; because the Old…