21 Jul 2017
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
Catholic theologians, philosophers and historians of the twentieth century, having fought fiercely to eradicate prejudices against medieval philosophy, adopt the anti-Scholastic rhetoric of the old Protestant histories and project it upon the thinkers of the Baroque age. As a result, they reject the 'schools'...
Read more → 19 Apr 2017
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
Concerning the Covenants [De Foederibus] The old covenant or testament was established in accordance with the righteousness of God through the Law, so that the righteousness of God might be vindicated from the false accusations of men; so that men would be inexcusable, guilty, and convicted by the old covenant...
Read more → 30 Aug 2016
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
Here is an insightful section from Harold Berman outlining the ways in which historical frameworks (e.g. ancient, medieval, modern) can obscure rather than clarify: In addition to nationalist fallacies, legal historiography has suffered also from religious fallacies, both Protestant and Roman Catholic,...
Read more → 10 Aug 2016
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
"The Church of God…would probably have existed among men even without revelation, and been preserved and spread by pious and holy men. Its purpose is eternal happiness. And it is no wonder that I call it a natural society, since there is a natural religion and a desire for immortality planted in us. This...
Read more → 02 Nov 2015
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
I haven't had the opportunity to post much over here lately, but I thought I'd share one reason why: I've been engaged in developing a new series, Abraham Kuyper Collected Works in Public Theology published by Lexham Press. This is a twelve volume collection of Kuyper's major works on culture, common...
Read more → 04 Feb 2015
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
David Koyzis has a thoughtful piece up over at First Things today, reflecting on the legacy of pillarization in the Netherlands in the generations following Abraham Kuyper. Discussing the challenges of post-war secularization, Koyzis writes, "A religious community focused only on its own survival in a hostile...
Read more → 18 Dec 2014
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
The following is a Christmas devotional meditation by Abraham Kuyper, drawn from his collection Honey from the Rock (Honig uit de Rotssteen), vol. 2, no. 1, translated and generously made available by James DeJong, president emeritus of Calvin Theological Seminary. DeJong is working on translating...
Read more → 17 Dec 2014
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
In doing some looking for the causes of all the bad things associated with modernity, and an alternative narrative to that offered by Brad S. Gregory, for instance, I came across some references in Richard A. Muller's Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics of some relevance. On the philosophical and scholastic...
Read more → 04 Nov 2014
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
By many modern accounts, the value of Protestant scholasticism, which reached its zenith in the seventeenth century, is dubious. But as Willem van Asselt observes in his introduction to the new translation of Franciscus Junius' A Treatise on True Theology, no less a modern theologian than Karl Barth...
Read more → 19 Aug 2014
Posted by Jordan Ballor 
Pierre Bayle provides his reading of the status quaestionis regarding the reception of Augustine, particularly with respect to the bishop of Hippo's soteriology, among the Calvinists, Dominicans, Jesuits, and Arminians in the Reformation and post-Reformation era: The approbation which councils and popes...
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