Tag: being

By Daniella Garber [About the author] I grew up in a small city nestled in the Allegheny Mountains. As a small child, I was fixated on a rock formation on the side of one of those mountains that, to me, looked exactly like Noah’s ark. I was certain that was where the ark had landed after the flood, and that it had been there so long it had disintegrated in a way that prevented any trees from growing where it had sat. Eventually, my brain caught up with my imagination, and I let go of that particular belief. To this…

It is not easy to find a sound, healthy Bible teaching evangelical church in the 21st century. For example, we (my wife and I) have been without a stable church for quite some time. We have “church-shopped,” and that gets almost defeatist after a while. It isn’t that we’re looking for the “perfect church,” not at all. We are simply looking for a church where the Word of God is opened and exposited in a way where Christ is central; where the Gospel is central; where genuine Christian proclamation is taking place. Unfortunately, the MANY churches we have visited over…

I have left some context out of the following, but based on what you have read from me thus far (on the blog in general and over the years etc.), how would you translate my rather technical phraseology? Maybe you don’t think it makes sense. If so, where does it fail in regard to its theological premises and mutually implicating ideas? (I wrote this as a quick off the top thought on X and Facebook) What folks don’t realize it seems, even at higher levels, is that when considering the decretal system and God, when it comes to the incarnation,…

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…

Being right about Jesus and the triune God isn’t like being right about a political platform or position. When we do our due diligence to be right about various and contingent political platforms and positions, we must make judgments, with the Lord’s help. But being right about Jesus isn’t ultimately based on our judgments and positions, per se. That is to say: to be right about who Jesus and the triune God are has nothing to do with us. When a person arrives at a saving knowledge of God in Christ it isn’t based on judgments and verity; it is…

For me I only have the capacity to follow a Dogmatic or Systematic theology insofar that I believe it is sticking to the theo-logic inherent to the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ. This is what keeps it Biblical. This is what keeps it from adulterating and going beyond the 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡; that is, by going to its inner and upward reality in the Godman (Theanthropos), Jesus Christ. In other words, speculative theologies, ones that reason from the being of humanity to the being of God; ones that reason discursively about nature vis-à-vis God, as if nature holds vestiges of God;…

Karl Barth being rightfully critical of a reformed Federal or Covenantal theology. Here we see what it looks like to think from a noncompetitive relationship between God and humanity; and to simply think humanity from God’s life for us. It is God who is genuinely free in His inner and eternal life, and not us (‘Not unto us, not unto us, but to God be the glory’ Ps 115). It is God’s being in becoming for us, wherein the “us” comes to have the type of creaturely, and thus contingent independence (as TFT would say it) vis-à-vis God that the…

What is dialectical theology? Barth is often referred to as a dialectical theologian; especially the earlier Barth. Some want to implicitly criticize Barth by asserting that because Barth was a dialectical theologian, he, eo ipso was a Hegelianizing theologian (i.e., putting Hegel’s dialectic to work for his theologizing). And yet, Barth is much more original than that. He was clearly a modern theologian, as is anyone who currently does theology in the 21st century. Even so, his methodology was to allow Holy Scripture and its reality in Jesus Christ to regulate his deployment of any other mechanisms he might have…

Christians don’t believe in a chain of being between God and the world. Christians believe that God in-breaks into the world with irruption that this world could never produce. Without God’s gracious and free election to invade this world, this humanity, we would have no access into God’s inner life; which is eternal life. The Christian believes in a life that was first set for them in the vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ; indeed, a life, a Deus incarnandus (‘God to be incarnate’), that was there ever before this world was this world. Deus incarnatus (‘God incarnate’) is humanity’s only…

God is not an analogue to analyze. God instead is a triune and eternal relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God (de Deo uno) in three persons (de Deo trino) to be inhabited, through Christ, and enjoyed. The Christian is in an immediate relationship with the triune God through union with Jesus Christ. We are indeed, as Christians, in an intimate and personal relationship with the living God. Not because we are persons in relationship with God—thus predicating what God’s relationality and personalist reality must be—but because God is eternally personal and [onto]relational within the inner-reality (in se)…