Doctrine of God

Wake Up And Smell The Coffee

by on December 1, 2017 | 15 Comments

…in this book Dolezal argues that a number of contemporary evangelical and Reformed theologians, whether wittingly or unwittingly, have rejected and/or wrongly redefined elements of classical Christian theism. In other words, they have rejected and/or wrongly redefined elements of the Christian doctrine . . . Continue reading →

Bavinck On Divine Simplicity

by on August 25, 2016 | 9 Comments

Now Christian theology has always been more or less conscious of this calling. On the whole, its teaching has been that God is “simple,” that is, sublimely free from all composition, and that therefore one cannot make any real [i.e., ontological] distinction . . . Continue reading →

Voetius Contra Middle Knowledge

by on August 13, 2016 | 2 Comments

From the points which have been so far upheld against middle knowledge it is clear that the whole difficulty in the present controversy reduces to this one point: Could free conditioned things, from eternity indifferent by nature to futurition or nonfuturition, have . . . Continue reading →

Why This Controversy Now?

by on June 23, 2016 | 3 Comments

During this same time, there was also groundbreaking historical work done by Richard Muller and those who followed in his wake. Muller’s research definitively smashed the “Calvin against the Calvinists” thesis, and his undeniably strong scholarship produced a whole new generation of . . . Continue reading →

A Response To Grudem’s Appeal To Hodge On Eternal Subordination

by on June 23, 2016 | 7 Comments

Hodge actually makes this restricted application explicit, “The subordination intended is only that which concerns the mode of subsistence and operation, implied in the Scriptural facts that the Son is of the Father, and the Spirit is of the Father and Son, and that the Father operates through the Son, and the Father and the Son through the Spirit.” (Systematic Theology I:461) The point he is making is that there is subordination in “the mode of subsistence and operation” only in the sense that one cannot reverse the orders of relation. They are not said to be subordinate in any sense of eternal submission, but are subordinate relationships in the fact that one relationship leads to the next and we cannot flip those. The Son is Son of the Father and so his Sonship depends on the Father being the Father. Nothing more is entailed or permitted. According to Hodge, the Son is Son in a subordinate way only in the sense that a Son has to have a Father, and that is the mode of subsistence and operation. Continue reading →