Martin explains the connection.
Doctrine of God
Antonius Walaeus De Natura Dei (On the Nature of God)
Because, in our late modern, liquid, age, relational categories trump all others and because we’re given to nominalism now, it’s sometimes considered downright provocative to claim that God has a nature. The older Reformed writers, however, spoke this frequently. On the Heinrich . . . Continue reading →
Why Analogies And Illustrations Of The Trinity Fail
Michael writes to say that he recently read an article I wrote in 1999 on the Trinity and to ask if I’m willing to consider an analogy for the Trinity. I reply: Honestly, no. All illustrations of the Trinity end up in . . . Continue reading →
It’s Not Divine Simplicity And Complexity. It’s Just Simplicity. Period.
In earlier generations simplicity was regarded as an indispensable aspect of an orthodox doctrine of God. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists all confessed that God is “without parts” and the Belgic Confession even made divine simplicity its opening affirmation: “We all believe . . . Continue reading →
Creator, Sustainer, Father (1)
One of the most basic impulses of the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment west has been to get rid of God. The Enlightenment brought a revolution. In Christian antiquity, God was and we were becoming. In Modernity (and late modernity) we are and God . . . Continue reading →
Does God Change?
In Reformed theology, the doctrine of God is at the headwaters. What we say about God touches every locus of theology. It shapes our theology, piety, and practice. When we say that humans are created in the image of God, we cannot . . . Continue reading →
Perkins: God Is In Perpetual Action
Hitherto we have spoken of the perfection of Gods nature: Now followeth the life of GOD, by which the Divine Nature is in perpetual action, living, and moving in it self. Psal. 42. 2. My soule thirsteth for God, even for the . . . Continue reading →
A Meditation On Divine Immensity
One of the turning points of my early Christian life was reading J I Packer’s Knowing God. That book did what better books should do: it helped me understand Scripture and thereby to know God in a true and more profound way. Since . . . Continue reading →
Creator, Sustainer, Father (2)
In the first part we looked at the doctrine of God embedded in Heidelberg Catechism Q/A 26. The catholic (universal) Christian doctrine of God summarized in the catechism is in antithesis to modernist doctrine(s) of God in process or contingent upon us creatures. . . . Continue reading →
Providence: God’s Active, Almighty, Present Power (2)
In the previous post we considered what it means to say “I believe in God the Father almighty. One of the most scurrilous things that some neo-Pentecostalists have alleged against the historic Christian view of God is that we are Deists. Quite . . . Continue reading →
Helm: Modified Classical Theism And The Evangelical Big Top
It occurs to me that in this convergence of views in the direction of what is called ‘modified classical theism’ there is the makings of a theology for the ‘big tent’ of evangelicalism, a formula for providing space for the various disparate . . . Continue reading →
Bavinck: Our Knowledge Of The Trinity Is Only Grounded In Scripture
Now, over against all those who want to base the doctrine of the Trinity on rational grounds, we must undoubtedly maintain that we owe our knowledge of this doctrine solely to God’s special revelation. Scripture alone is the final ground for the . . . Continue reading →
Does God Change?
Introduction In Reformed theology, the doctrine of God is at the headwaters. What we say about God touches every locus of theology. It shapes our theology, piety, and practice. When we say that humans are created in the image of God, we . . . Continue reading →
God’s Love Does Not Change Him Or In Him But It Does Change Us
The effect or manner of God’s love is, that God makes the person happy whom he loves. For he doth amply reward that joy and delight which he takes in the holiness and obedience of the Elect, while he pours plentifully upon . . . Continue reading →
Du Moulin: The Arminians Make God’s Love Mutable
XV. The Arminians do cover themselves against this shower of arguments, with that their distinction of the antecedent and consequent will of God. They say that God does love some men more than other by his consequent will, that is, by that . . . Continue reading →
Trueman: What Is The Status Of Nicene Orthodoxy In Modern Calvinistic Evangelicalism?
…The point at issue is that of the nature of the relations. In his writings, Professor Ware explicitly rejects the Nicene notion of eternal generation while asserting that of eternal functional submission. That is in fact a very radical move to make, . . . Continue reading →
Clarity On The Trinity
This God taught Israel to say ‘The Lord our God is One.’ There are distinctions of course. The NT writers, and Christ Himself, noted that OT prophets like David and Isaiah, when ‘in the Spirit,’ were party to conversations within the Godhead . . . Continue reading →
Note To Evangelicals Revising The Doctrine Of God: The Socinian Vortius Denied Simplicity
Conrad Vorstius also occupies a significant, but nearly entirely negative, place in the development of Reformed orthodox doctrine of the divine attributes. After his successful defense of two of his works, De sancta trinitate (1597), and De personis et officio Christi (1597), . . . Continue reading →
A Response To Grudem’s Appeal To Hodge On Eternal Subordination
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 →
Biblical, Ecumenical Christian Doctrines Are Not Adiaphora
Rachel Miller writes: “I hope that those who have read and recommend Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology will go back and reconsider what is being taught.” Continue reading →