Category: Theology

Most people who read the writings of Athanasius are struck by his singlemindedness. Most of his writings are ad hoc, responses to provocations in the hectic, decades-long argument with Arianism. Yet his theological vision is undistractable. He seems to be a pastoral satellite orbiting one vast doctrinal planet. What about that planet? Everybody who studies…

At the 2014 Los Angeles Theology Conference, I presented a paper that gave an overview of the work that the doctrine of the Trinity does in systematic theology. It was the first plenary session of this conference called Advancing Trinitarian Theology, and my task was to kick things off for the many fine papers and…

This isn’t a post about how-to-not-fight Calvinists, because a clear theological dispute can be a good thing. It’s a post about how-not-to-fight them; it’s about one specific tactic that I think is both inaccurate and unproductive. When a good, vigorous Calvinists-vs-Anticalvinists fight gets going, things tend to escalate quickly (to quote Will Ferrell, not Will Farel).…

1:14 Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.     ~Ephesians 1:14 The Holy Spirit, whom we definitely receive, is an earnest (i.e., a pledge, a specimen block, a foretaste) of our coming inheritance (cf. Rom. 8:28, 11). The word translated “earnest” is also…

Here’s a resource I recommend for teaching theology: George Benedict Winer’s Comparative View of the Doctrines and Confessions of the Various Communities of Christendom.  It’s from the nineteenth century, so it’s public domain, and you can read the original German edition here,  and the English translation here. The whole book is interesting, but I’d especially like to draw…

One of the interesting moments of disagreement at the recent Future of Protestantism discussion was when Leithart and Trueman tried to come to terms with each other on the place of sacraments in Christian worship. Leithart spoke movingly of the Lord’s supper as the high point of the weekly Christian liturgy. Trueman insisted that Protestant…

That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. ~Ephesians 1:12 The end in view in the loving and wondrous purpose of God regarding us, which is set forth in verse 11 is, “that we should be unto the praise of His glory.” Paul defines who he means by…

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a serious amateur theologian who viewed her task as taking the creed and re-stating it so people could hear and understand it. But she wouldn’t want me to call her a theologian. I’m calling her one because I think every Christian is in some sense a theologian –either a good one…

Protestantism, it seems to me, is right in what it recognizes as the authority of tradition: tradition has a relative and limited authority which must be strictly subordinated to the authority of the word of God in Scripture. Here are three brief examples of the Reformation position (these are just off the top of my…

Not Your Grandpa’s Anti-Trinitarianism It is a disturbing fact that the most vigorous form of anti-trinitarianism currently on the market is to be found within the sphere of conservative evangelicalism. In the nineteenth century, the dominant variety of anti-trinitarianism was the old-world Unitarianism which found fertile soil in America. (See Earl Morse Wilbur, A History…