Reprobation as Christian Doctrine

Stephen Holmes ends God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards with a critique of Reformed theologies of predestination, especially of reprobation. The critique doesn’t entail a denial of reprobation. Holmes instead argues that reprobation hasn’t been . . . . Continue Reading »

Is God Selfish?

God’s end in creation is Himself, to glorify Himself. Does that make God selfish? No, Edwards says, and for two reasons (cf. Holmes, God of Grace and God of Glory: An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards , 58-61). First is an overtly Trinitarian answer. Virtue is to love God, also for . . . . Continue Reading »

Triune Simplicity

Recent interpreters of Jonathan Edwards’s theology have suggested that he denies or qualifies various aspects of classical theism, particularly the simplicity of God, the notion that whatever is in God is God. Kyle Strobel ( Jonathan Edwards’s Theology: A Reinterpretation (T&T Clark . . . . Continue Reading »

Enter into Joy

Philip Ryken and Michael LeFebvre end their Our Triune God: Living in the Love of the Three-in-One with a chapter on “the Joyous Trinity.” They close the book with this: “Eric Masall insisted that the Trinity is never merely a doctrine but always meant to be a grateful joy. To say . . . . Continue Reading »

Relationship all the way down

Time exists, argues Lee Smolin Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe . Space, though - space is secondary, an emergent property, a manifestation of some deeper reality. What might that be? In his NYRB review of Smolin’s book, James Gleick anwers: “For . . . . Continue Reading »

Orgin, Agent, Destiny

N.T. Wright regularly points out how Paul inserts Jesus into the Shema in 1 Corinthians 8:6. “There is but one God, the Father,” he begins, and as a Jew there he would have ended. Instead, he adds, “and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” Hear, O Israel, the God is one, and the Lord is . . . . Continue Reading »

Exhortation

Things are changing and all the changes will be great blessings so long as you don’t let the demands of the moment distract you from being the church. Look at this new phase as a fresh opportunity to live up to our name – Trinity Reformed Church. God is Love, and by His Spirit, the . . . . Continue Reading »

Parodic Trinity

In his The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation , David Chilton suggests that the dragon and two beasts of Revelation 12-13 constitute a demonic parody of of a modified Trinity. The Father is imaged by the dragon, the Son by the sea beast, and the land beast, which is the . . . . Continue Reading »

Augustine, Personalist

One of Holmes’s targets in The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity is the “de Regnon thesis” that Greek and Latin Trinitarian theology took separate paths, the former being more pluralist and the latter more monist. Like other recent . . . . Continue Reading »

Triune Creator

Stephen Holmes’s The Quest for the Trinity: The Doctrine of God in Scripture, History and Modernity is a learned, sharp challenge to the “Trinitarian revival” of the 20th century. One of his central criticisms is that recent Trinitarian theology, in contrast to patristic theology, . . . . Continue Reading »