I am now a PhD student “beginning” (in scare quotes, because I’ve been studying said subject matter since 2002 in earnest) research on a doctrine of grace in what I am calling the Protestant Church Fathers juxtaposed with the grace-ologies of Thomas Torrance and Karl Barth. I am somewhat riffing on this topic of research from TFT’s own PhD dissertation 
entitled A Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers. I am finally undertaking this venture of study through the Concordia Academic Theology Consortium: Martin Luther School of Bible and Theology; the same institution (of the General Lutheran Church) that recently awarded me with an honorary doctorate of theology for the work I did with our Evangelical Calvinism books, and the development of all that and more here at the blog over the years. I have wanted to pursue PhD studies in theology since at least my later years in undergrad (so back in 2000 – 01). After many failed attempts, all because of logistics and funding, it has never happened. But that would be providential. I think the work I will produce now, rather than back then, will be seasoned by the years of reading and reflecting and writing, that outwith this passage of time, it would not have had. Dr. Enrique Ramos will be my in-house supervisor, along with Dr. Fred Macharia who will be a reader of the progressing work as well. I also have one, if not two external (to the institute), supervisors (“readers”), who would work in a collaborative way with the institute, with me, in order to ensure that my work is the best it can be; I will announce who these two other guys are if and when that comes through. All told I could have four co-supervisors (and/or readers) in this process of research and study. The dissertation itself will require an 80K word minimum, and then, of course, an examination at the end (South African, Australian style of examination for PhDs). Lord willing, if the work is good, if it has something to contribute to the greater edification of the church catholic, the goal will be to have it published by some academic press after its completion. My hope is to have this all done within a couple years; at most, three. I think I already have a good head start based on all my prior research, as that is housed at the blog here. But there are threads, even in those many posts and bibliographic information, that need to be chased down, developed, and brought into a coherent whole. That is what this dissertation will be all about. It should terminate in an original body of work that sheds light on how a Protestant doctrine of grace developed, among its Reformed orthodox developers, and then how that compares, contrasts, and constructively is reified, or even abandoned in the theologies of Thomas Torrance and Karl Barth, respectively.
My next steps are some of the most important, and I’d say, difficult, in this whole process. I need to develop an informed proposal, and built into that, present a working chapter, organizational framework for the whole of the dissertation. That will be my immediate task at hand. I am really looking forward to this project! It is something I have wanted to do, as I said, for twenty years now. It has all fallen into place rather organically, and finally. Even the topic of research just sort of came to me, and yet has been natural to the theme of my thinking and study for many years.
I am thankful to Drs. Enrique Ramos and Fred Macharia, and the whole of the Concordia Consortium, for giving me this opportunity. I want to do my work as unto the Lord, and for the edification of the Church catholic. As you research the background of the General Lutheran Church, the Consortium, and the various schools and ministries it represents, you will see a heart for the Lord Jesus Christ that fits well with my own desires to be for the glory of God in Christ, and thus the edification of His Holy Church. I see myself as a dogmatician, concerned with reading and understanding the contours and inner logic of the Church’s confessional doctrine and dogma. I see myself, as a Free church theologian, of a Reformed predisposition, interested in constructively engaging with the Great Tradition of the Church, if only to do so, once again, to bring greater knowledge of who God is for the Church, for the world, in Jesus Christ. I see myself as a confessional Protestant theologian who thinks primarily, as a matter of method and confession, from a robust theology of the Word. This is what will animate my work on this dissertation in the days to come, and what will give me the vibrancy to push forward when I might feel weary in the push; it is the love of Christ that constrains me.
One more closing word: I am not Lutheran, but I have always been Lutherano or Lutherish; this impulse, even under Reformed conditions, was inculcated into me by a former seminary professor, supervisor, and (current) mentor, Dr. Ron Frost. The Lord used him mightily to put me on the trajectory I’ve been on now since seminary. Frost is by no means a Barthian or Torrancean, but he is definitely Lutherish in his theology, and as such, I came to this own mode of theologizing and sensitivity as I caught this from him. Barth was very Lutherish, so maybe Frost is Barthianish after all (haha). That said, the whole trajectory, the whole thesis that I am currently developing, comes from Frost’s own work on a doctrine of grace in the theology of Richard Sibbes juxtaposed with William Perkins. The insights he gained from his research are inextricable to the research I will be doing, particularly as I engage with the neo-Thomist doctrine of grace as a quality/substance. And for Frost, much of this insight came from Lutheran theologian, Helmut Thielicke. So, even now, as I detail some of this, it becomes obvious that once the theological thread is pulled it keeps unraveling in interesting and surprising ways; there are interconnects and relationships often glaring at us in our respective theological faces, but we often gloss right past those. My dissertation will attempt to hover, drop-in, set up camp, and dig into the caverns of these deep and interrelated relationships, with hopes of showing how the backthreads of all these theologies emerge, potentially, as a beautiful tapestry of theological imagination for the Church and witness to Jesus Christ.
Stay tuned.