Category: Evangelical Calvinist

Torrance is discussing the impact that dualistic Hellenism has had upon Western-thought-forms; namely the precedence that classical thought has given to the optical mode of thinking and verification (so the obsession with empiricism, etc.). TFT is highlighting the impact that this methodology and epistemology can have upon our construal of God’s “Father-hood” and “Son-hood,” and how Christian/Patristic theology, primarily through Athanasius’ influence, eschewed this “Hellenizing” effect by reifying it through Christian ontology. The contrast between Christianity and Hellenism could hardly be greater than at this fundamental level, where biblical patterns of thought governed by the Word of God and the obedient hearing of faith (υπακοη της πιτεως) conflict…

Karl Barth operated with his own reformulated Christologically conditioned Covenantal theology. For Him there is one covenant (of grace), just as sure as there are two covenants, if not three (covenant of works, covenant of grace, pactum salutis i.e., covenant of redemption) that the Federal or classically covenantal theologians such as Cocceius, Ursinus, Olevianus, Bullinger et al. articulated. Barth was a strident critic of Federal or classical Covenantal theology, insofar that he detected a primacy of the Law as the antecedent ground upon which the conditions of the covenant of grace are ultimately fulfilled in the coming of Christ for…

I am not a doctor of theology. I’ve tried to rationalize owning the one I had from the unaccredited school called Martin Luther School of Bible and Theology. I presented them with a 50K to 60K diss (based on my previously published chapters in my two coedited books, and some further original writing), but I just cannot justify it. I’ve been involved in the academic theology world for years, with just my MA degree (and I’m not even a fan of the academic theology world). I don’t need the ThD or PhD for what I do, ultimately. Anyway, just to…

Au contraire! John of Damascus, Maximus the Confessor et al. countered the persistence of the dualists into their own time; indeed, as they stood as Christian theologians of the East in the 7th and 8th centuries. For Augustine, in his pagan days, he partook of an early dualistic religion, known as Manicheanism. This type of dualism, indeed, as it was imbibed by the Gnostics, and even some so-called Christian Gnostics, gained a foothold into the life of the Church, the world, that would perdure even into our present in the 21st century. For the Confessor and the Damascene, they were…

Athanasius thought of sin and the fractured life with God, as a dissolution. Annihilationism has been in the news lately (because of Kirk Cameron’s recent disclosure that he now holds to the conditional immortality or annihilationist position in regard to hell). There is a sense that at the last judgment those spiritually outside of Christ will finally be dissolved; we could even say, annihilated. But the fact of the matter remains, according to Scripture’s teaching: the final annihilation of fallen human beings will be an everlasting existence in the midst of a conscious annihilation. Such that, the individual person will…

The creator of the Dilbert comic series, Scott Adams, just died today after a long battle with metastatic prostate cancer. He was also a popular author focusing on matters of daily life, and cultural commentary. I followed him on X. He had been publishing videos discussing his cancer, and the state he was in at that moment. Only a few weeks ago he said that he didn’t have much time left. Just a day or two ago he was placed into hospice care; and today he died. During these last few weeks, he said that he was considering becoming a…

German anthropologist and philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach stated: God is “the outward projection of a human’s inward nature.” A very telling observation with reference to a postEnlightenment turn-to-the-subject worldpicture. This remains a fitting observation even for our 21st century time; i.e., that people, by nature (according to Scripture, and empirical observation), in the inverse, have collapsed the classical attributes of God into the mirror of their own image. A postmodern, normative relativistic people simply wake up in the morning, look in the mirror in the bathroom, and say: “hello there God.” Even if not this overtly, it is the way us…

Just finished. It is a good provocative read. It is written in a nice narratival theological style, which definitely works within the spirit and ambit of the Barth style (i.e. engagement with Holy Scripture throughout). Philip re-places a doctrine of the devil into the second article, so, Christology and Soteriology (think Apostle’s Creed) versus the traditional placement as found in the first article with reference to original creation and God’s providence. This reorients thinking the devil from emphasizing him as a fallen angel, and instead sees him primarily in the scenery of the wilderness, as the adversary (of Christ), as…

Click on images to enlarge. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, all! Athanasian Reformed

Penal Substitution Atonement (PSA) theory has been in the news again lately (online/social media). As an Evangelical Calvinist (see V1&V2 of our Evangelical Calvinism books, and my articles-mini-essays on the topic) I have pressed what TF Torrance refers to as the ‘ontological theory of the atonement.’ Many evangelicals and Reformed folks think that PSA in fact is the Gospel simplicter. And so, to deny PSA would be to deny the Gospel itself. But as I have demonstrated over and again at the blog, the background to PSA theory isn’t as prima facie biblical as its proponents make it sound. The…