Category: Evangelical Calvinist

I have been asked over the years why I do what I do; in regard to reading and writing theology. I’ve been asked if this is some sort of hobby for me (one time I was assertively told that that is all this ever could be). I am always taken aback by this question. I look at inhabiting Scripture as my life, not a vain thing. I look at good theology as an extension of, and deep dive into the inner-reality of Scripture; which is, Jesus Christ. I look at my Christian existence, and the doing of theology therein, as…

Just finished Volume 3. 2/3 of the way through the 6M words. All that remains is Volume 4 (the blue ones not pictured). I think I’m gonna take a bit of a sabbatical from the CD till I start V4. I have a bunch of other readings I need to get caught up on. We are richly blessed in our country to have the freedom and access to such great doctors of the church. Amen. In the meantime you can always stay in touch with Barth through my Barth Reader. And Merry Christmas!             Athanasian Reformed

Arius the Heresiarch I’ve been involved in some discussions recently revolving around figuring out what ought to count as heresy versus heterodoxy. Well, I should say, I’ve been attempting to introduce the heterodoxy category as a way to think about aberrant teachings without going to full ramming speed, and labelling everything we disagree with as heresy. The reason this has been coming up more on other social medias is because Kirk Cameron recently just came out as an Annihilationist (or Conditional Immortality proponent). So, predictably, folks have been calling him a heretic. But I protest. It is better to identify…

Where is God? Why doesn’t he care? Why does he let me go through these dark shadows of existence? There is a deep waning in what appears to be his absence. As if ‘greater are the circumstances of life, than he who is at the right hand of the Father.’ This is what the serpent whispers into the ear-gate as I continue to sputter in what seems to be the darkness of the abyss. Where are you, O Lord? Why have you abandoned me? It seems like your cross, rather than bringing light, only brings darkness in the torment of…

All Christian theology, 𝑑𝑒 𝑗𝑢𝑟𝑒, is eschatological. This is what makes space for 𝑒𝑐𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑎, 𝑠𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑚 𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑖 𝑑𝑒𝑖 (“reformed and always being reformed according to the Word of God”). Selah Athanasian Reformed

The Pietists, 1898. Creator: Venny Soldan-Brofeldt A few years ago, I was at a regional ETS theology conference. A theologian friend of mine was there giving a paper. Afterwards he, and myself, and others got together for a little theology talk. In that talk my Lutheran theology friend said: “you’re a Pietist, and I’m an Anti-nomist.” And yet, I was wondering what exactly my friend had in mind by calling me a Pietist (some make take this as derisively as being called a Pelagian). The thing is, there are many expressions of a Pietism, all the way from the Puritans…

Barth in his continuing development of a Christian Ethic, in this section, has been discussing self-power versus real power, which is God’s. In this development he has arrived at a discussion on suicide. He is taking self-power, in abstraction from God’s power, to entail a pseudo-power (self-power), and reducing it to its logical conclusion; which ironically, is at the heights of illogicality. He refers to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thinking on this, even as Barth goes on to paraphrase Bonhoeffer’s position.[1] To the best of my knowledge, the Ethik of D. Bonhoeffer (1949, 111–116) gives us the most cautious statement so far…

Mary Baker Eddy The following represents something that I found rather surprising in Barth’s Church Dogmatics. In a context where Barth is discussing the strength and weakness of the human body, he goes into a small-print excursus on Christian Science and Mary Baker Eddy. As I have been reading through the CD what I have found is that many of the themes Barth is known for, while present, only really represent a fraction of his overall corpus. Indeed, those themes (election etc.) are contextually conditioning for all of his work, even his thinking on the human body and physicality. But…

An email question from a reader of the blog: 𝑂𝑛𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑡𝑟𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑎𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝐶ℎ𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑠 “𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒” 𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑑𝑖𝑒𝑑. 𝐼 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑡. 𝑆𝑜 𝑛𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑛𝑜 𝑖𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒. 𝑊𝑒 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝐺𝑜𝑑’𝑠 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒. 𝐼𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐵𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠, “𝑏𝑦 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑑…” 𝐼𝑠 𝑃𝑎𝑢𝑙 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐽𝑒𝑠𝑢𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑒? 𝐶𝑎𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝 𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠? My brief response: 𝐒𝐨, 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡 (𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐉𝐮̈𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐥, 𝐓𝐅 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞), 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐬 𝐚 “𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠.” 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬…

Natural theology separates God from his Word, and in the Reformed context this separation requires that another mechanism be constructed in order for God to enact relationship with the world; i.e. through the 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑚 𝑎𝑏𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑚, or through a determining decretal system that inter-links God’s power and being to the rest of the world all along keeping God untouched by the world or the creatures who inhabit it (all in an attempt to sustain the philosophically developed loci known as simplicity, immutability, impassibility, infinity, etc.). The problem, if not recognizable, is that in this ‘classical’ system of theology proper God is…