07 May 2018
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
The following passage is so over-quoted that I hesitate to quote it again (I discuss the general idea in an essay in this book), but I'm going to do it anyway to make just one tiny little point. That point is this: though Aristotle is enjoying something of a renaissance among "conservative" Christian...
Read more → 20 Dec 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
At the end of the Book of Ruth, Boaz redeems the Moabitess Ruth, and the people and elders of the city say to Boaz: "We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned...
Read more → 21 Nov 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Let's return again to the Westminster Confession of Faith on Scripture. In 1.9, the Divines say: IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must...
Read more → 14 Nov 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
I'd like to return to a point that I made in the previous post to emphasize it again, because, at the end of the day, it is extremely important. So, once more: the Westminster Divines say this: VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things...
Read more → 10 Nov 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the first chapter of their confession of faith, on Holy Scripture, the Westminster Divines say (among other things): VI. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary...
Read more → 02 Nov 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
The scene: Twitter, Reformation Day 2017. The charge: “The more I prayed, studied history &theology, read the Bible & ChurchFathers, the more I felt God calling me to be Protestant” said no one — Ryan T. Anderson (@RyanTAnd) November 1, 2017 To date, this has been retweeted 95 times...
Read more → 23 Oct 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
Protestants in the sixteenth century were fond of quoting a number of passages from patristic sources in which the "exclusive particle" (i.e., "alone") was used in connection with justification. Philip Melanchthon, for example, does this in his Responsiones ad impios articulos Bavaricae inquisitionis...
Read more → 17 Oct 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
I've touched on the extra patristicum, er, extra calvinisticum before, here. The important idea in this connection is that the divine nature of Christ is omnipresent but his human body cannot be. This is a corollary of Chalcedonian Christology, viz. that the integrity of Christ's two natures must be maintained...
Read more → 03 Oct 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
The Protestant Reformers regularly referred to the sacraments as visible words--that is, they communicate the same gospel and promises as the written word, but in a different form, one that could be handled, touched, tasted. And yet the sacramental elements are not self-explanatory. For that reason,...
Read more → 25 Sep 2017
Posted by E.J. Hutchinson 
In the prefatory address of the Institutes of the Christian Religion to King Francis I, appended to the work from its first appearance in 1536 (though it undergoes expansion over time), John Calvin gives a full-throated defense of the evangelical cause in France in the tradition of Justin Martyr's First...
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