The Calvinist International
Christians struggle with two kinds of assurance – assurance that God loves them and assurance that God likes them. We might immediately cringe at such language as overly anthropomorphic and sentimental. I want to forestall this reaction, however, by admitting that such language can and has been used in all sorts of distortedly sentimental ways. […]
In an most interesting section of his Orations Against the Arians, Athanasius fields an objection against the eternal generation of the Son based on a parallel with creation. Athanasius has been arguing that certain divine names (Father, Wisdom, Word) show us that God must have always had a second hypostasis who was nevertheless consubstantial. For God […]
For good reason, one might find John Calvin referred to as an “anti-speculative” theologian. But as with so many other monikers applied to Protestant theologians (e.g. “anti-scholastic”), one must take the label in its relative rather than its absolute signification. When confronted with biblicism, Calvin could sound a philosophical and “speculative” note. B.A. Gerrish observes […]
We continue our series on Zacharias Ursinus’s explanation of the doctrine of the God (see part 1 for more), looking now at His explanation of the Trinity. The following comes from his Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, eighth Lord’s Day section 3, pg. 129-132 of the P&R edition. Readers will notice a strongly “traditional” explanation, […]
Given the recent widespread confusion about the doctrine of God among Reformed theologians, we thought it would be helpful to post some excerpts on the basic concepts of theology proper from Zacharias Ursinus. Ursinus gives a scholastic treatment of the question, one that is both traditional and succinct. The following comes from his Commentary on […]
Pastor Tim Keller has posted a follow-up to the ideas and concepts that Mark Jones highlighted a few days ago concerning Christ’s cry of abandon from the cross. There’s a lot that could be said, but so far it’s simply worth nothing that it is a very good conversation that opens up lots of avenues for […]
A few days ago, Pastor Tim Keller posted the following devotional line to facebook: Now, we can assume that this was meant as a sort of “pastoral” exhortation, something intended to encourage and inspire rather than to serve as truly provocative or revisionist theology. It is also possible that someone other than Pastor Keller wrote […]
In a recent blog post, Peter Leithart reflects on the concept of “person” in relation to the Trinity. He takes as his starting point the classic definition given by Boethius: a person is an individual substance of a rational nature, and from this argues that the divine persons of the Trinity, being persons, are also […]
A couple of months ago there was a lot of discussion as to whether the Son, or Word, as such stands in a relation of obedience to the Father. The suggestion was also floated a couple of times that there was a wealth of patristic support for such an idea. The following passage from Gregory […]
Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 21, again. Though the term “person” in Trinitarian theology carries a lot of baggage with it now, and often imports misleading ideas into reflection on the Godhead (e.g. “individual center of self-consciousness,” vel sim.), such ideas have little to do with the term as it was originally used in the fourth century. Gregory […]