Category: Evangelical Calvinist

Helmut Thielicke offers an important anthropological distinction, one that stems early on from someone as astute as Irenaeus, and then becomes appropriated and modified by someone as seismic, in the Latin church, as Thomas Aquinas. If this is not understood as a basic theological-anthropological datum vis-à-vis some form of classical theism, engaging with the theological past into the present will become immediately unintelligible—which I would suggest is why so much of popular apologetics and theologics that we see pervasive, particularly in the online theological world, ends up being an exercise in futility. I digress. Let’s hear from Thielicke on this all-important…

At the end of the day all theological discourse must reduce to some reality. If the reality isn’t ultimately Jesus Christ, and the triune God He mediates, then you, by definition do not have a genuinely Christian theology. People can spend all their days, all their energies recovering natural law, natural theology so on and so forth, merely because they think this provides for the orthodox way of Protestant theology that history has to offer. Ultimately, though, Christian theology isn’t judged by a historicism like this, for that is what this mode is operating from. Christian theology, instead, is judged…

If you’re a Catholic or scholastic Protestant thinker, you’ll follow along with Erich Przywara’s dictum (following Thomas’) of ‘revelation perfecting revelation.’ You’ll see a continuity between the naked philosopher’s machinations, and what comes in perfection through God’s Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. You’ll maintain that humanity, since it is born into an iteration of God’s grace (which is an abstract creation), has the capacity, albeit, finite, to think towards the God of creation. On the other hand, if you’re a genuinely Protestant thinker who takes the noetic effects of the fall, who takes total depravity seriously, and who does not sublate…

I’ve written against theologies of glory ever since (and before) I heard of them. A life verse of mine (among a gazillion) is the following: “For I’ve determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” This typifies the staurological life I live the Christian as, from the cruciformed life of the risen Christ’s (or at least the one I aim for). Because of this I have an acute allergy to anyone who chooses instead to be a theologian of glory. Jesus identifies theologians of glory this way: “I do not receive honor from men. But I know…

I feel compelled to write something very brief with reference to the simplicity of the Gospel. When a person goes online, in the main, and comes into contact with theology and Bible people, especially those who are selling their particular ecclesial tradition or denomination, what seemingly ends up happening, at least in my perception, is that the Gospel becomes layered over. There is an accretion, a slab of barnacles, an encrustation of peoples’ takes about the reception and appropriation of the Gospel that seemingly obscures the simplicity of the Gospel/kerygmatic reality. If I didn’t have the years of training I…

And Jesus answered and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” So he said, “Teacher, say it.” “There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have rightly judged.” Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but…

I have had contact with Dr. Enrique Ramos for quite a few years via Facebook. He just recently reached out to me and out of the blue said he and the institution he represents (along with the Sub-Director of that institution, Dr. Fred Macharia) had an award they wanted to confer upon me. He said they both were thankful and appreciative for the work I have been doing with our edited books on Evangelical Calvinism, along with the furtherance of that through my other writings (here etc). He asked me what my legal given name was, I wasn’t sure why….

I am going to attempt to write a series of blog posts that will be sections of what potentially could be turned into a review essay on chapter 7 (the final chapter) of Bruce McCormack’s book The Humility of the Eternal Son: Reformed Kenoticism and the Repair of Chalcedon. Chapter 7 is where McCormack presents his constructive proposal on what he considers to be the needed ‘repair’ of Chalcedonian Christology. As the reader will see, he doesn’t abandon Chalcedon, he constructively engages with it offering an interesting proposal that I believe might be a way forward for thinking the Divinity and humanity of…

The thought occurred to me last night that much of the theological developments over the last many centuries, particularly during and post-mediaeval times stem from personal insecurities. Ludwig Feuerbach famously made the observation that ‘theology is anthropology,’ that it is the self’s projection of its self-perceived notion of virtuousness and greatness. Here’s an anonymous description taken from an anonymous source: “Feuerbach claimed that our conceptions of “god” are always just projections of our own values. God fulfills our need to objectify our virtues, and embodies our values. Thus the essence of religion is human nature, and our Gods tell us about ourselves…”theology…

The following from, Craig Carter, epitomizes what I have been writing against ever since I started my online blogging life in 2005. For me, my work against this sort of trope, started in 2001-02 when I started seminary. As I’ve told many a time, my professor, Ron Frost (who would go on to become a mentor and someone I did teaching fellowships for in Historical Theology and Ethics), introduced me to this world. Frost had his own go arounds with the father of this movement, Richard Muller; they had an exchange in Trinity Journal back in 96—97. What Carter is…