The Scriptorium Daily

Author: Fred Sanders

  • Unintended Consequences of Shoving (Robert W. Jenson)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Robert W. Jenson is one intriguing, stimulating, and important American theologian. David Bentley Hart once called him “America’s perhaps most creative systematic theologian,” and Hart ought to know. A friend of mine started reading his Systematic Theology Vol. 1 a few years ago, and sent me an e-mail that said (maybe in all caps) “It…

  • Evangelical Quarterly on Holmes

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    Fred Sanders
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    In July 2013 in Cambridge (UK), the Tyndale Fellowship’s Historical Theology Study Group gathered to hear papers responding to Steve Holmes’s book The Holy Trinity: Understanding God’s Life (published in the U.S.A. as The Quest for the Trinity).  I got to attend because I was already in the area for Torrey’s annual July class in…

  • Our Whole Salvation & All Its Parts: Calvin on Union with Christ

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    Fred Sanders
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    For the frontispiece of his book Calvin on the Christian Life: Glorifying and Enjoying God Forever, Michael Horton chose one of the best passages in the entire Institutes. It’s a paragraph –four sentences, actually, though the central sentence is one of those long, classical affairs with eighteen “if”s in it– in which Calvin delivers the payoff…

  • Notes from Daniélou’s Trinitarian Spirituality

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    Fred Sanders
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    Here are some key passages I have long cherished from a wonderful little book, God’s Life in Us (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1969), by Jean Daniélou. If “God’s Life in Us” sounds a little too devotional for you, be encouraged: the book was originally published in French under the title La Trinite et le mystere de l’existence:…

  • Trinity in Old and New Testament (Vos)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Gerhardus Vos (1862-1949), best known for his biblical theology, also wrote a systematic theology. In 1896 he brought out a Reformed Dogmatics in Dutch that is now being published in English by Logos. I was struck recently by his deft handling of the question whether the doctrine of the Trinity is revealed in the Old Testament.…

  • Coffee with Facepalm Jesus Calling

    Coffee with Facepalm Jesus Calling

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    Fred Sanders
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    An earlier generation asked What Would Jesus Do? But these days, people are increasingly comfortable with skipping the hypothetical, shifting out of the subjunctive, and just telling us What Jesus Would Say, in their opinions. If he were really here, that is: if he were talking, if he were blogging, or meme-ing, or cartooning, or…

  • Three Elements of Trinitarianism in the New Testament

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    Fred Sanders
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    Whether the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible is a nice question. Yes or no? When asked, I routinely answer “yes,” and then backpedal from there: I concede that the key terminology (person, substance, Trinity) is not to be found in the words of Scripture, that the whole conceptual package is not assembled in…

  • Fringe Benefits of Being Finite

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    Fred Sanders
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    Discovery Honing skills Getting stronger Being surprised Falling in love Learning Figuring something out Taking risks Maturing, outgrowing Relief at getting over something Becoming a parent Having frontiers Surfing Having fringes

  • Fundamentals Sermon for Founders Day

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    Fred Sanders
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    I got to preach in Biola chapel on Founders Day 2014, the week we marked Biola’s 106th birthday. We also happen to be within the centennial period for the publication of The Fundamentals (1910-1915). What, you may ask, are The Fundamentals (1910-1915)? What, you may ask, do they have to do with the Bible Institute…

  • Down with Random Acts of Kindness (What’s Best Next)

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    Fred Sanders
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    Matt Perman’s book What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done is finally available. I’ve been looking forward to this book for a long time, and am glad to report that it lives up to the high hopes I’ve had for it. The genre of productivity literature is its own…

  • Symposium on Soulen’s The Divine Name(s)

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    Fred Sanders
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    The Winter 2014 issue of Pro Ecclesia: A Journal of Catholic and Evangelical Theology features a 58-page symposium on Kendall Soulen‘s important 2011 book The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices. That seems like a lot of pages of commentary, but they are well deserved: Soulen’s book is both a solid accomplishment in its own right…

  • Thoughts Gymnastikos on Alternatives to Trinitarian Regiratio

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    Fred Sanders
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    Athanasius of Alexandria (4th century), always trying to put the best face on the writings of Origen (2nd century), once cautioned readers that Origen sometimes wrote dogmatikos (expressing his actual considered opinion and judgments), but at other times this “labor-loving man” wrote gymnastikos, as if trying out ideas, “as if inquiring and by way of exercise.” It is in…